Blink of the Gods
by corvusdraconis
Summary: [HG/Loki] AU: There's far more to Hermione Granger than anyone ever expected. Most of all, herself. EWE, NC, M for Safety [COMPLETE]
1. The First Blink

**A/N:** I blame sand gnomes.

 **Beta Love:** The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard

 **Summary** : [HG/Loki] There's far more to Hermione Granger than anyone ever expected. Most of all, herself.

* * *

 **Blink of the Gods**

 _One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive._

 _Friedrich Nietzsche_

"My Lady," Loki purred, pressing his mouth to the back of her hand with a courtly bow.

"My Prince," the woman replied with an elegant curtsy and smile.

There was a flash of movement, and Loki had a dagger to her throat, a sort of smug smile on his face. "You put your guard down."

"Nay, Prince Loki, look down," she replied, not flinching at the dagger at her throat.

Loki looked down to see the point of her jeweled dagger poised directly over his family jewels.

"You would bleed out long before word of my death did ring out across Ásgarðr."

Loki's eyes widened and his dagger disappeared, his smile spread across his face. "And who would have thought one so infatuated with books would have the skill to emasculate me."

"Knowledge is power, my Prince," the woman replied. "The power of the mind and the weapons of war make little difference."

He touched her cheek tenderly, brushing her hair from her face. He growled softly, his half-lidded eyes glowing slightly red as he neared her, pressing his face into her neck. As he pulled away to looked down into her eyes, she smiled at him, yet it was not her mouth that betrayed her warmth; it was her eyes. Her face, trained from a young age to not betray her true thoughts, was like stone save for the slight upturn of her lips.

Loki, knowing that smile was for him, was drawn like the moth to flame, wanting nothing more than to bask in that fire, even if it should burn him up. Here, alone with Lady Gudrun, nothing else seemed to matter. It made the hours spent learning the art of war from so many tutors fade away. No other lady of Ásgarðr drew him in so easily, and he knew she did not do it purposefully. Her station, at least amongst the gods of Ásgarðr, was nothing special. She was no famous warrior or war hero. Her family, if anything, stayed away from the royal court. In fact, it was one of the few things Loki had no real idea what they did, save not fight the battles most of the well known did in Ásgarðr. Lady Gudrun was a mystery, and that made her more appealing. Everyone else was such an easy read— even when try tried so very hard not to be.

Thor stomped in, yelling some grand spiel of how he had slain a frost dragon, and how glorious it had been.

" _ **Where is my brother?"**_ Thor bellowed. " _ **He must share in the glory of my most prodigious accomplishment!"**_

His brother tromped in like a rampaging bull elephant in musth and threw the large head of a decapitated wyrm in all its bloody, slime-coated glory onto the pristine, polished floor.

" _ **Brother!"**_ he bellowed in greeting, pulling him into a manly hug, thumping him on the back. "I have brought you a glorious head for you to emblazon upon your most naked wall."

"Why, thank you, brother," Loki said, looking rather weary. "My wall was most definitely wanting a fresh coating of slime and blood."

"Nonsense, it will be prepared perfectly and mounted most gloriously as befits a royal prince of Ásgarðr!"

"And where did you find such a— creature?" Loki asked. He had to admit the creature was huge and had fangs to spare. It was an impressive sort of beast.

"Stupid beast decided to pester a village under our protection," Thor sniffed. "Sif injured it, but broke her leg when it fell upon her. The Warriors Three did smite it off her, but it was _**my**_ sword that did ram through its skull that ceased its rampage!"

There was an odd coldness to the beast that radiated off its head, even dead. Loki frowned. "I believe this beast is from Jötunheimr," he speculated. "There must be a portal or—"

"Who cares where it came from if it provides such sport," Thor said, waving him off. "All we care is that it left the protection of father's decree of peace when it left Jötunheimr and attacked that village in another Realm."

Loki pressed. "Brother, if there _**is**_ a portal from Jötunheimr, then not just one Realm could be in danger. We should tell All Father before he sees fit to ask you about it and why you didn't tell him about it sooner."

"Fine, fine," Thor said. "But after we regale the table with the stories of great valour and heroism! All we need now is a great and most glorious war!"

"We are not at war, brother," Loki said.

"Soon, my brother," Thor said. "I can feel it in my bones."

"Would that be the ones you broke trying to wrestle a rock troll?" Loki commented archly.

"Bah!" Thor said. "War is _**glorious**_ , brother. Even you can admit to that."

"True," Loki said, getting a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Especially when they so desperately deserve it."

Thor grinned and hoisted the head up and over his shoulder. "I'm going to get this properly mounted for you, my brother," he crowed. "Come and enjoy the stories around the tables."

Loki looked Gudrun. "You should come. The tales of war are most excellent."

Gudrun's face betrayed nothing, but her eyes cast down a moment. "There is very little of worth in warmongering, my Princes. Do not let me stop you from enjoying your evening. I must, however, decline."

"You do not believe the war with the Jötunn is a worthy pursuit," Loki rumbled.

"No, it is not," the woman replied, her dark brown locks shimmering with a gold glint as she brushed a strand from her face. "They are people, just like any other people. They have emotions, fears, loves, needs. What _difference_ does it make that they live in a world of ice and frozen earth to the fires of one Realm and the Winds of another? What does it matter that their forms are taller and their faces fierce— would yours not be if living in a place that would swallow you up rather than spit at you? What use is being immortal if the very Realm tries and tests it, hoping that you step in the wrong place to become food for the great whale who lurks beneath the ice— while we sit in our temperate glory under the cover of marble and metal and whose windows open to the very skies for snow is never here."

Loki scoffed. "What drivel. Have you been reading in the library, Gudrun? They are animals. Barbarians."

The woman's eyes darkened, a glimmer of fire flickering across her eyes. For a moment, her hair seemed to move like living flame. "Pardon me, Prince Loki. I do not wish you to suffer my woeful inadequacies any longer." She turned, curtsied, and swept the room in a blur of her wispy robes.

Loki, stunned, made to pursue her, but Thor hooked his arm around his and yanked him along. "Let's go, brother. Do not worry about the likes of _**her**_. There are plenty of other lovely fish in the sea."

* * *

Loki did not understand exactly _how_ Lady Gudrun managed to get past Heimdall. The elder god, watchful as always, simply nodded to her as she passed by, slamming his sword into the great portal mechanism and watching her go. Loki, concealed by a spell, quickly dashed in after her while Heimdall was distra—

Yank!

Loki was pulled off his feet as the portal closed. Heimdall scowled at him as he set him down again.

"Prince Loki," the grim Asgardian stated. "You are wanted back at the royal palace.

Loki, unused to being seen so well, could only stare and work his mouth like the burbling of a fish. He stared into the darkened portal that no longer swirled.

"Where did she go?" Loki demanded.

"Where she must go," Heimdall answered calmly. "And where you cannot."

Loki scowled. "I am a prince of Ásgarðr. You _**will**_ tell me where Lady Gudrun went!"

"No, he will not," Odin's voice said from the Bifröst.

Loki's eyes widened as his face paled. All-Father stood sternly, glowering at his son. "Go back to the palace. _**Now**_."

Loki could no nothing less than obey at once, scrambling to do as his father ordered.

"He will attempt to follow her," Heimdall said grimly.

Odin sighed. "See that he does not use the Bifröst."

"I shall, my King," Heimdall said, "but you know as well as I that there are ways to travel between the Realms that have nothing to do with the Bifröst."

Odin closed his one remaining eye and sighed deeply.

* * *

"There you go, little guy," Gudrun said with a smile, a strange feeling of relief at being able to express what she felt without having to hide under propriety and social status.

The frost beast pup slobbered on her, pouncing on her chest and licking her face, wriggling eagerly against her body.

A taller than average Jötunn plucked the pup up by the scruff and placed it in the basket with the other pups. "Judging by his slobber, you fixed his leg for him?"

"All better, Arvid," Gudrun said with smile. "He had a little break on his rear leg, but it mended easier than that frost yak you tried to get me to fix last week."

The Jötunn laughed heartily. "Frost yaks are a hundred times more stubborn with a extra helping of grump."

"Is that what you call it?" Gudrun mused.

"Your accent is gone," Arvid said, a small smug smile on his face.

"What?"

"You sound like us," he said. "Your Asgardian lilt no longer peppers your Jötunn."

Gudrun sighed, shaking her head. "Finally, I will not longer be the brunt of so many frost seal jokes," she replied.

"No, I think those will never get old," Arvid said with a grin.

"Bah," Gudrun muttered.

"You even grunt like a male," Arvid teased.

"Can I really help it?! _**YOU**_ are my most avid tutor!" Gudrun hissed.

Arvid grinned. "It is my secret plot to keep you to myself in the hopes one day you will butcher my frost seal and allow me to lay claim to you."

Gudrun groaned. "It's bad enough you tricked me into carrying your hunting knife not knowing what that meant!"

Arvid roared laughter.

"I'm just glad Solveg finally had enough of your flirting and threw down her sealskin in front of the elders and dragged you down on top of it," Gudrun retorted.

Arvid sighed. "She is a wonder."

"And your mate," Gudrun reminded him.

Arvid just shrugged. "It is still great fun to make you squirm," he confessed.

Gudrun shook her head just before the basket of frost beast pups toppled over and the entire litter tackled Gudrun and pinned her down, wriggling and slurping her into submission.

" _ **Gah!"**_ she gasped, falling backwards.

Pups to the Jötunn, they were all the size of small ponies to Gudrun, and she ended up flat on her back covered in enthusiastic, wriggling, and oh-so-happy pups.

Arvid tutted, pulling them off and setting them back in their basket. "They simply cannot help themselves," he said with a sigh.

Gudrun grunted, her body sunken deep into the snow so far that the ground was almost level with her face.

Arvid gave her a hand, and she pulled herself up using his finger as an assist. "Thanks," she said.

Arvid looked upon her kindly. "You should stay here," he said. "You do not belong in Ásgarðr."

Gudrun's expression saddened, her shoulders slumping slightly. "I would be a horrible ambassador if I did not live in both places."

"The Great Frost Mother accepts you, Gudrun," Arvid said sombrely. "As if you being here, dressed as we do, blessed by the snow and ice did not prove this. We accept you. Our people— of all of Ásgarðr— you and your parents have always kept the oaths and attempted to to learn our differences."

"And similarities, if Fiske is to be believed," Gudrun said, gesturing a flourish with her hand.

"Fiske is a braggart and an idiot," Arvid muttered.

"I know the type," Gudrun said, deadpan.

Arvid bellowed laughter, startling the pups in the basket. "Ah, I suppose we all have them, heart sister," he said. "For every few great examples of hunting prowess, there has to be one whose head is lodged most deeply in their own arse. Yet, the Great Frost Mother has not seen fit to swallow him whole, so there must be some reason he still manages to draw breath."

"Mrrrrrrllll."

Thump.

Gudrun found herself pounded into the earth again, a giant cat's saber-toothed head rubbing against her with a rumble. She used her hands to rub the great beast between the ears and eyes, and the frost sabre purred happily.

"You are a horrible thing, Halvor!" she laughed, pulling herself up to rub the cat's scruff and under the chin.

This gained her a rough tongued slurp upside the face.

"He wants to take you across the flows," Arvid said with a chuckle. "He knows the routine. He knows you."

Gudrun sighed, slumping over the great cat and rubbing his belly from across his back as she pulled herself up behind his head to straddle his back. "Spoilt is what he is," she said with a roll of her eyes. "He just wants to run like the wind and knows I'll let him."

Arvid put a loose collar around the great cat with a dangling bell on it. "There, so the poor hunters don't think Death is coming for them in the snows."

Gudrun chuckled. "It is not my fault the biggest sabre in Jötunheimr decided he wanted me as a hearth-mate!"

"Well you will have a rampaging pack of frost beasts at your beck and call soon enough," Arvid said, pointing to the wriggling basket of trouble. "Not even including every beast you've healed, and every Jötunn you have mended their ailments for that want to adopt you forever."

"Bah," Gudrun grunted, channeling her inner male. "Maybe if they put their spear where their mouth was, they'd have a shot, but you know they are all talk until they feel the pull."

Arvid snorted, putting her packs on the sabre's back and rubbing his ears. "There is enough supplies there to last you many days if the hunting is bad, more if hunt well. I hear the younger rut seals are goring each other early along the coast. If you feel generous, you can spear one and have the beast drag it to the next camp. I hear Kjeld broke his arm wrestling in a harpooned whale, so his whelps may need the extra food since the whale ran off both alive and with his spear."

"Poor guy," Gudrun said, sympathetic. "He can't even carve a new spear until his arm is better. He's probably a mess."

"He's probably feeling emasculated, I'm sure," Arvid said. "We do love our spears." He made eyebrows at Gudrun.

"Great Frost Mother, Arvid, will you stop," she laughed. "You're horrible.

"My mate seems to scream differently."

Gudrun rolled her eyes and used her seat to signal Halvor. The cat leapt up and away, leaving Arvid covered in snow the giant sabre had kicked up into his face.

Arvid wiped the snow from his face and chuckled, waving his spear at her in respect as she disappeared into the snow and ice.

* * *

Gudrun lit the fire in the hearth, her hand passing over the cold offerings to the Great Frost Mother— the caring but highly testing goddess of the frozen wastes of Jötunheimr. No creatures of Jötunheimr lived without her blessing, if one believed in her— yet dying happened often if her tests were ignored. The Jötunn, who came in a variety of species, were all her domain, but it was the frost giants that paid respect to her the strongest, for the largest tracts of Jötunheimr were the frozen wastes— the land no other Jötunn of the mountains and more temperate land would brave. It wasn't to say the other areas were less dangerous. Each had their own dangers fitting of the Jötunn that lived there, but the frost giants were notorious for their ferocity and strength of will, so much so that when Ásgarðr had once declared war upon Jötunheimr, it was the frost giant's' visage that haunted the stories to Asgardian children.

But, were the frost giants truly as powerful as the Asgardians believed? Perhaps, but the prejudices of their nature were far more warped. Asgardians believed all frost giants to be barbarians and heathens, refusing to believe in the power of the gods— the Asgardians, specifically.

And why should they?

Gudrun knew that the Jötunn put their unquestioning faith in the goddess that both tested and protected them from the unforgiving wastes. They put their love and respect into the being that had always been there for them while Ásgarðr did very little in the way of godliness.

But what of her?

Gudrun was Odin's best hope that peace would remain between the Jötunn and Ásgarðr. She— starting with her parents— had lived, breathed, and made their life on Jötunheimr, serving as ambassadors from Ásgarðr in service to the All-Father. Her parents had almost died many times to secure the trust of the strangely secretive people, and Gudrun had been a true miracle born amongst the frozen wastes— first, because she seemed surprisingly impervious to the cold just like the Jötunn and second, because her mother had supposedly been barren.

Now, she was torn between two so very different cultures. Despite all the glitter and glory of Ásgarðr, the cold winds of Jötunheimr called her back— a harsh land for a strong, resilient people.

But what was she?

Gudrun had no idea, but as she passed her hand over the offerings of the best pieces of her kill Halvor had helped her drag out of the ocean. Hunting was always intimate. It required focus— sensing the prey hiding under the ice. The best ones always were, the cunning or the shy. They were often fatter and more comfortable in the water than out, while the young stayed above.

Gudrun was one of the few who hunted in a team. She and Halvor had been a team since he was a young cub. She had always allowed him to hunt with her, and he always got a fair share of it. It was why he was the biggest frost sabre the floes had ever known— as fast as the shifting winds yet as agile as the fish-stealing frost mink. She knew because he'd bring her mink like the mother cat would bring food to her cubs. The mighty hunter showing off his skills…

Her relationship with most of the beasts of the snows was something very special. She could heal any creature of the snow and ice, and they seemed to instinctively know it. They would crawl to her bed and lay their heads upon her, patiently waiting for her to tend them. As long as they were with her, no Jötunn would hunt them, and they would never hunt them close to the camp, lest they be coming or going from her. Out on the wastes, however the rules were survival. Beast or giant, it made no difference. It wasn't to say that a known beast would give them a wide berth or vice versa, but there was dishonour in the hunt when the food went to the family and the best, choicest pieces to the Great Frost Mother. Those who failed in this, however, would often find themselves without prey to hunt, a spear broken just when they needed it most, or other misfortunes that no hunter wanted for themselves or their families.

But as fickle and dangerous as the wastes could be, they provided a good life for those who respected it and worshipped the Great Frost Mother. It gave the Jötunn's immortality new meaning because even as they were unaging once full-grown, they could still fall to laziness or stillness of the mind and body.

There were no fat cats sitting on the throne of Jötunheimr's wastes. The supposed reigning king of the Jötunn hid himself away in Útgarðr: Útgarða-Loki, known to the non-frost giants as Skrýmir. He was, quite literally, fat and happy, controlling the storms of Jötunheimr with his magic and pretending he was a _god_. Perhaps, to the other giants, he was, but the frost giants did not bow to him.

Rumour had it, the only reason the frost giants had agreed to peace with Ásgarðr was that Odin had taken something precious from them in exchange for peace. Gudrun had her own suspicions about that. Her annoying attraction to Prince Loki was more than a little irritating. He was arrogant, obnoxious— yet, he could also be surprisingly sweet and even engaging. His bond with his brother was just far too strong to survive any small amount of attraction he might have had to her.

Why was she even _THINKING_ about Loki?

He and his brother were both fully aware of their sex appeal, and while Loki's reputation was not nearly as infamous as Thor's with regard to his bedding of women, Loki was no inexperienced virgin either. It seemed that Loki, unlike Thor, was searching for something more.

What a fool I am, she thought, digging her nails into her palm.

She cast her hand over the hearth, recentering herself. "Great Frost Mother, I give you the heart and liver of our hunt. Help me bless this camp and the families within while their wounded heal. Show them the light in the darkness of the frozen wastes."

Her hand was surrounded in flames, and it consumed the offering with a blue fire. The fire spread up her arm, across her body as fiery feathers sprouted across her skin. They were growing thicker, she thought. They covered her skin almost completely. She could feel the tug and pull of muscles she didn't know she had, stretching and contracting under her skin. Soon, she knew, it would be time to take her place as the formal ambassador, but that would require the formal coming of age ceremony— putting one's faith into the Great Frost Mother to seal the lifelong Covenant.

A Jötunn could go centuries upon centuries without ever having sealed that part of their lives, and many did not until they were mated and had children to provide for. Alone, there was only yourself, but family made the odds so much more intimidating. The coming of age was more an acceptance of the true nature of the wastes. Nothing lived or died unseen by the Great Frost Mother.

The flames in front of her blazed to life, spreading into a large bonfire with a more radiant warmth. Small flares spread out from it, moving to lanterns, torches, and other hearths throughout the encampment, and the ground thundered with the sound of spears being beaten against the ground— a sign of gratitude and respect for the gift of flames.

Fire was _life_ — it thawed their food, made the drinks blissfully warming, and the sleeping lodges true homes protected from the harsh, biting winds outside. Before Gudrun, her parents had always brought the ever-burning coals from Ásgarðr to help the camps, but those were now treasured by the hunters on the floes to both light their way and set fires at their temporary hunting base camps.

The camps themselves, Gudrun tended— something in her natural magic, which Ásgarðr called sorcery— gave her the ability to call the flames. As long as they stayed in this area, the fires would burn, fading only when they had to leave for new places with the change of seasons. The fires provided succor for those Jötunn who suffered the aches and pains acquired through a great many years of accumulated injuries, whose bones ached as the winds shifted, and whose hearts were heavy with the loss of family and fellows who didn't survive along with them. They also provided wonder for the youngest generation, the children whose tolerance for the ice and snow was not as well-honed as their parents. Even with a natural tolerance to the bitter cold, warmth was a blessing.

She had become a _blessing_.

Fire-bringer. Mender. Beast-friend.

The tell-tale jingle of the giant bell Arvid had placed on Halvor's collar rang out to tell the camps who was coming long before she materialised in the snows. She often came with a fresh kill, supplies, and herself. She tended the wounded, the hearth-beasts, and the hearths themselves, bringing with her the news from other camps, new stories of survival, and even the more sorrowful news of those who had been taken by the snows. There was always a warm bed waiting for her wherever and whenever she came— a place to rest, a bowl of hot seal stew or a generous whale-steak.

In Ásgarðr, wealth and status followed fame and glory— reputation of great conquests and bravery against tremendous odds. It _also_ tended to follow in the footsteps of war, and war was something she truly detested. She had seen exactly what war did to people and, sadly, the glory of one side all-too-frequently involved the slaughter of the other side's innocents rather than its villains. And who _were_ the villains, really? More often than not, it was a game of opinions, yet she knew there were always exceptions to the rule.

The barbarian rogue who had taken over an entire village, killed their men, raped their women and children, and then forced them into slavery to feed his men—his head had _deserved_ Odin's fury, and it was one of the few times Gudrun had agreed that punishment had been well and truly deserved.

Odin had been fighting hard to broker peace and keep it nurtured for centuries, even with or especially with the Jötunn. The mistake that had made had been his father's subjugation of a few different species of giants and his later warring with the frost giants. All that had come to an end when Odin had battled with Laufey, king of the frost giants, yet the tales were all hazy as to what hat actually brought about the end of the war and a tenuous peace between their peoples. He had also appointed her parents as his ambassadors to the frost giants, and it _had_ worked, at least for the giants. They no longer spat at the mere thought of Ásgarðr.

Asgardians, however, were quite a different story. They still thought of Jötunn as nothing more than barbaric brutes or rabid animals that should be put down for the good of all.

Even Loki was caught up in the ever-growing battlelust and eager anticipation of war against the Jötunn.

Loki.

Great Frost Mother, why did she keep thinking about that arrogant Prince? Why did she think, even for a moment that he might—

Idiot, she chided herself. You are a fool.

It was odd, she realised, supposedly being one of the gods and paying respects to another god that wasn't even of Ásgarðr. But, despite the gods of Ásgarðr saying they protected all the Realms like benevolents— none truly cared for Jötunheimr.

Unless they considered her, and well— that wasn't a thing.

She wasn't a goddess of anything. The skills she had, weapons or sorcery, simply fell to the wayside because she wasn't a battle-hardened hero. She was just an ambassador, the kind that would never get glory or accolades.

Not that she wanted it. Glory… accolades. They were just words and reasons for other people to resent having to bow to you with empty respect.

As the flames spread throughout the camp, lighting the shelters and heating them, Halvor pressed his head against her back and herded her towards one of the shelters— the only one big enough to shelter both her and her large feline friend. The small encampment didn't seem to mind putting up an extra place for her, having arranged the whale bones and hides in record time. Once she left, they would probably use it where the children could play together inside from the storms, and that pleased her. She would hate that the place remained empty and unused when she was gone.

Halvor yawned and flopped on the soft lichen that had been gathered for him, sprawling out to fill a good half of the shelter with his massive bulk.

"You're _huge_ ," Gudrun muttered, rubbing his chin and earning herself a rough tongue swipe across the face.

Large as he was, even from a Jötunn's perspective, she never feared Halvor. Arvid said he had imprinted on her like a frost goose gosling, but Gudrun just dismissed that. Halvor _chose_ to be with her, for if he had truly wished to leave, he could have done so at any time. To be fair, however, many hearth-beasts were close to their chosen family— just not quite as close as she was. He would always be waiting for her to return from Ásgarðr, almost if he knew when she was coming.

A child slipped in with a large bowl of steaming stew, smiling at her as he pulled the sealskin off the bowl to expose the glorious odor of the spicy contents within. "Your dinner, Lady Gudrun," he said with a smile.

"Thank you, Joar," she said. "My thanks to you and your family."

"Mum says thank you for bringing us the seal," he answered with a brilliant smile. He dashed out the door, closing the thick hide door behind him.

Gudrun pulled the hide out from a bundle by the fire and dragged it over to Halvor. The big cat grabbed it by the shank and pulled it over, happily gnawing on it with noisy gusto. She leaned up against him and drew the stew up to her mouth, blowing on it and inhaling the rich scent.

Gudrun sputtered when Halvor's tongue lapped into the remains of her bowl, not even waiting for her to finish the bottom scraps. She shoved his head over with a playful swat, earning herself a paw to the head and a rough tongue bath that made her hair stand up like a snow hare's ears. Halvor purred loudly as she pulled the soft, warm sealskin over and cuddled up against the large feline.

"Jerk," Gudrun said with no less love.

Halvor rumbled, wrapping his huge paws around her in a protective curl.

As her mind drifted and her eyes closed, she realised that being curled up against Halvor was much more comfortable than all the feathered, posh mattresses of Ásgarðr.

* * *

Gudrun woke with the sound of a low, deep snarl and a short wheeze of breath. She patted around in the dark, lit only by the soft glow of the hearth fire, groggy and feeling like her head was packed full of pillow feathers. She felt around for Halvor's fur, using her hands to guide her to his front, accidentally going the wrong way and ending at his rump. She worked her way back, tracing her fingers around the great cat's elongated fangs and drawing her hand across his head. "Halvor, what is it?"

A short, rasping wheeze came from the floor. "Gu—" A low gurgling followed.

Gudrun froze. She recognised _that_ voice.

"Halvor, cease," she asked the cat, and the large feline rumbled in displeasure but did what she asked. She hung a lantern on the hook and turned up the flame. Loki's startled blue eyes stared up to the roof of the shelter as the shape of Halvor's paw seemed crushed into his armor.

"Prince Loki," she said, her face wrinkling in confusion. "Why are you here?"

Loki rasped, his neck seemingly half-crushed by Halvor's well-meaning guardianship.

"Hold on," she said, hurriedly pulling some seal skins over to the real bed and patting it.

Halvor, understanding instantly, grabbed Loki by the scruff of his armour and dragged him onto the bed, locking his sabre teeth around Loki's head.

Loki, understandably, looked mighty uncomfortable.

"Don't speak," Gudrun said, placing her hand over his throat. A soft glowing fire spread across her hands and then soaked into his skin. The tissue melded and knit together, The blood seemed to seep back into his skin. Gudrun's eyes, glowing like twin suns, blinked slowly as she pulled her hand away. The ghost of fire and feathers faded with the light. She pulled a piece of cloth from a nearby basket and dipped it into a tin, using her fingers to squeeze the extra salve away from the bandage. She gently wrapped his neck with the cloth.

With slow movements, she undid his extensive armour, undoing the buckles, and pulling apart the crushed pieces of metal and mashed hardened leather. She dipped a cloth in warm water that had been heating by the fire. Wringing it, she cleaned the areas that had been crushed by the metal and then set her hand over his chest.

Gold and blue flames sank into his chest from her hand, spreading across his ribs and down his body. Loki took in a long, painless breath, his eyes wide with wonder.

Without a word, Gudrun carefully wrapped his chest with salve soaked bandages and hung his abused body armor on a nearby stand. She pulled out a basket from under a table, removing out a tunic and a soft, fur-lined garment. Helping him into it, she lay him back on the bed, propping his body up at an angle and pulling another sealskin over his reclining body. "Rest, Prince Loki," she said, her voice like the wind outside.

With that, she dimmed the lanterns once more, curling up against Halvor, and went to sleep.

Loki, his face wrinkled in conflict, saw the frost sabre's curled muzzle and distinctive warning that he was watching him closely. He laid back against the pillows and watched as Gudrun kneaded the frost sabre's fur with her hands and yawned, her breaths coming slower and deeper.

The light in the shelter dimmed until the darkness seemed in from outside, leaving only the soft glow from the fire in the hearth. Loki stared into the darkness for many minutes, listening to the sounds of speech in distant shelters, the rustles and sounds of animals, and the creak of ice and snow.

 _Children_.

He heard the distinctive laughter and play of children and the telltale admonishment of parents bidding them to go to sleep— even without understanding the language, it was perfectly clear for what it was.

The warmth of her touch— her healing— lingered in his memory, an insistent forefront to his thoughts.

She lived here.

And _he_ —

He had never suspected or even thought it possible.

As his weariness caught up with him, his last thought was that he had called her opinions drivel.

* * *

Loki woke to find the aches of his wounds faded. He sat up, stretching tentatively only to find that while there was some tension, it was mended. His ribs, that had cried out for mercy under the swat of the giant frost sabre, were no longer sending stabbing pain through every breath.

His attempt to go unnoticed, however, while it had worked against the barbarian Jötunn, had not gone without notice to the large— gargantuan— cat that had appeared out of the snows like a phantom and crushed him with a single blow before he could even realise he'd been hit.

The stories had been glorious, but none of them told the truth about the great beasts. They were huge, larger than the Jötunn themselves, and equipped with all the things predators tended to have. Somehow, while he managed to slip by the large guard beasts that constantly patrolled the camp, the cat had somehow sensed him.

They put the guard dragons of Ásgarðr to shame, for they were large and boisterous, strong and quick to defend, but they were also stubborn and hard to train. While they could be trained, they were never safe to have around children or even unwitting adults.

 _These_ beasts—

They lived and breathed with their Jötunn families, and somehow Lady Gudrun had one guarding her. How was even possible?

Why was she even here?

The door rustled, and Lady Gudrun walked in, holding open the door as that giant cat pushed in and took up the one half of the shelter. He dragged a bone with a large chunk of flesh still on it between his legs and flopped down, gnawing on it hungrily.

"Are you hungry, Prince Loki," Gudrun asked.

Loki wanted to deny it, but his stomach growled loudly in response to the question, and Gudrun's mouth turned upward in a small, strangely tight smile. She placed a bowl in front of him, pulling off the sealskin cover to expose a rich stew. She placed an ornately carved spoon next to the bowl and filled a mug with what looked like a rich, frothy drink. "Eat, my Prince," she said. Your wounds are healed, but your body remembers the pain, and it will take a few days to recover your full strength again. The very land here will sap your strength if you are not used to it, and even then there are those that have succumbed to storms during the spring break up."

Loki, touching his throat where the cat had made its protective nature clear, nodded and picked up the bowl and spoon and sipped. His eyes went side soon after, and the contents of the bowl was gone in a matter of minutes, paying no attention to the fact he was licking the bowl clean.

Gudrun raised an amused eyebrow and took the bowl from him, gesturing to the drink.

Loki sipped it and then practically inhaled it, getting froth on his upper lip. He looked forlornly at the mug as she took it away only to grin as she handed him a refill.

"It is _akra_ ," she said. "Good for the morning. You boil the pods from the deep sea pods, dry them, then grind them into powder that can be stored and added to hot water. I've been told it resembles cocoa from Miðgarðr, but I have yet to confirm it."

"It is most glorious, my Lady," Loki said, clearing his throat as he found his voice. He paused, his face rapidly shifting between emotions. "Thank you."

Gudrun's expression softened but then the emotion was gone, hidden behind the mask that the royal court demanded of those ranked "below" the level of Æsir.

Loki found his chest ached at the sight of it— seeing such warmth hidden from him, while those in the royal court most easily threw themselves at him with all sorts of lustful, power-hopeful emotions. It was hard to find someone that wasn't horribly inclined to marry into the royal family by any means possible.

There was a knock on the side of the shelter.

"My Lady, could you please tend to Aurothack? He went lame trying to protect the children from an ice buffalo. He took a horn to the leg," a voice said. Loki frowned, as the words _almost_ made sense, but it seemed like a mishmash of sounds instead, almost as if he were listening to a conversation through many walls.

"Of course, Joar, please give me a moment," Gudrun replied.

Again— he could almost make out the words.

Gudrun turned to him. "Pardon me, Prince Loki. I have urgent matters to attend. Please, do not trouble yourself. Rest here."

To his surprise, Gudrun shrugged off the heavy shawl she had been wearing and put on a few strands of a necklace that seemed to be made of stars. "Halvor, please keep Prince Loki safe."

The big cat growled, staring at Loki, but set his head down on his paws.

Loki swallowed hard, eyeing the formidable fangs on the huge feline.

Gudrun exited swiftly, and Loki felt the deep chill coming in the door before she shut the flap. He frowned. Had she just walked out with less clothes on rather than more?

Yet, even as the savage cold bit into his skin, there was a strange… almost a numbness to it, almost as if the cold wore off. Loki eyed the watchful feline then looked at the door.

The curiosity rampaged in the silence. Loki swallowed hard and looked at the feline. "She said to keep me safe. Does that mean I can leave this place?"

Halvor wrinkled his muzzle but made no move to block the door. Loki slowly pulled on the thicker, warmer clothes nearby, boggling that Gudrun had apparently made, had, or at least somehow acquired something in his size for him to wear. It wasn't the finery of Ásgarðr, assuredly, but it was extremely comfortable and easy to move around in.

He slowly walked to the door, spreading his fingers and showing his palms as he walked by the watchful Halvor and stepped out of the door. The frigid wind attempted to freeze him to his bones, and it took a minute of pure numbness to recover himself to move.

As he shielded his eyes from the sun and the reflection of the snow, he realised Halvor had followed behind him, rumbling with a low vibration. He looked around and saw a crowd of Jötunn circled around something or someone. He realised they were crowded around a frost beast that looked large enough to take up the entire royal library. The beast's massive horns were covered in blood, and it bellowed in obvious pain.

A child was wailing, trying to go to the beast, but the adult was gently holding him back. Meanwhile, other adults were clearing the space as—

 _Gudrun?_

Gudrun walked up, placing her hands on the beast's muzzle. Her hands were glowing with a golden fire. Phantom feathers seemed to spread across her arms and down her back. Wings, almost tangible, folded around her body as the golden fire spread down the beast's body. The creature breathed into her hands, great nostrils flaring, tongue dangling as a it panted loudly. She walked away, running her hand down the beast's flank and then down to the leg that was bleeding and torn.

She whispered something—her voice like a song.

Emotion welled from his chest and he felt— _everything_.

He could _feel_ the pain of the great beast.

He could _feel_ the agony of the child that reached for his most treasured friend in all the Realms.

He could feel _her—_ he could feel her compassion for the beast, the respect for his sacrifice to save the child, the love for this Realm and all of its beasts. The emotion was agony, so pure and unfiltered. He could feel the heartbeats of those around him in that moment, all their faith turned to Gudrun.

Their _trust_ in her.

Their _love_ for her.

And yet she—

Gudrun turned her gaze skyward, eyes closing as a burst of pure energy shot from her body like a beacon to the skies above and the frozen ocean below.

Her hands ran up and down the injured leg. Bones realigned; muscles regrew. Tendons knit, and skin meshed. Even the beast's long, straggly fur grew back together seamlessly. The beast let out a groan of unmistakable relief, his paw and leg flexing, moving, stretching.

" _Ahgaki_ —" She soothed the beast. She turned to the parents of the boy and nodded, and they let him run back to the beast. He hugged his muzzle (about all he was sized for) and wept against the beast's furry neck.

The Jötunn sighed with true relief, patting Gudrun on the back and lifting her up into the air and cheering by stamping their spears against Nthe ground in a thunderous applause. One of the younger Jötunn hoisted up— was that a liver?!—into the air and sliced it with his hunting knife. He raised up the first piece to Gudrun, and she raised it up high with her bare hands.

Gudrun said something he couldn't quite make out, and the offering vanished from her hands, a small sliver of smoke reaching towards the skies. He handed her another piece, but this time she bowed to him and ate it. They cheered and stomped, patting her on the back as the rest of the food was shared amongst them all, both Jötunn and beast alike. One of the Jötunn children nudged Loki, offering a very fresh looking piece of meat.

Loki swallowed hard, discomfited. Halvor looked at him expectantly, and Loki offered it to him. The big cat took the tidbit, scraping off the top layer of his skin with his rough tongue, making the meat disappear. The child beamed chattering excitedly as he pointed to Loki and then Halvor.

A huge male Jötunn, whose skin was the colour of deep cobalt, grunted, offering Loki another piece from the tip of his spear with an expectant gaze.

Many, many eyes stared at him.

Loki cricked his neck and took the piece, looking a little green. He fidgeted, put it in his mouth and tried not to think of where it had come from. Yet, the moment it hit his tongue, he realised it was like a rich cream cake from his mother's favourite chef. Had he not known what he had just put in his mouth, he would never have been able to tell the difference.

His eyes must have betrayed his surprise because the Jötunn bellowed laughter and thumped their spears.

Gudrun was looking at him, her eyes still filled with fire, but just for a moment, her lips turned upwards— the broad Asgardian smile.

Yet, when she turned away from him, he saw a miraculous change in her. She smiled, _really_ smiled, as the boy whose beast had been healed ran up and hugged her. She said something to him, her voice so strangely musical, almost ethereal. She had a halo of fiery feathers crowning her head like a plume of a great bird.

Loki's chest seized as he realised he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

* * *

"Why didn't you tell me?" Loki asked quietly, his voice just above a whisper.

Gudrun frowned. "My attempts to ascertain if you were ready for such a revelation had been met with ridicule, Prince Loki, and I was not permitted to speak of such things to those that did not know of my role here."

"Permitted? By whom?"

"All-Father," she said. "I thought you— you didn't, oh no. You weren't supposed to be here! You weren't supposed to—"

"Lady Gudrun, please!" Loki protested. "Please," he said again. "I came here on my own. I was worried for you. I— I had wanted to apologise for my words before. I was sorry, but you— you were so elusive. You disappeared into the Bifröst, and Heimdall would not allow me to follow. I found this place entirely on my own through the ancient paths."

Gudrun sat down, looking unsure. Her brows furrowed in conflict.

"My Lady—" he insisted. "I _am_ sorry. Truly sorry. After seeing what I have today… I realise there is much I have not seen and only accepted. Hearsay, stories. Please, help me to understand. Help me _see_."

Gudrun looked conflicted.

Loki, putting out his hand to her and pulling on her f ingers to press his lips to the back of her hand, brushed her hair from her ear with one hand. "Please."

Gudrun closed her eyes and sighed. "Okay, but if you harm anyone here, Prince Loki, I will personally see that you bleed out on the floes long before Heimdall or Odin can find your corpse."

Loki perked at her fire— her fierce determination and protectiveness. "My Lady, I swear to you, I will not unless they are trying to kill me first."

Gudrun's eyes narrowed, but she nodded. "Very well, Prince Loki, I will teach you what I can."

* * *

Time passed, and Loki sneaked away through the ancient pathways, often taking different routes to ensure he wasn't seen. He spent most of his free time in Jötunheimr, learning the ways of the Jötunn in a way he had never even dreamed that he could.

He learned the shift in the winds and the creaks of the ice, the subtle shift in sound as a paw touched the snow as a predator came up behind him. Often, such lessons came in the form of Halvor "playing" with him, leaving Loki ending up face first in the snow with a gigantic purring feline laying on top of him. The large cat seemed surprisingly gentle despite his size and when he wasn't taking Loki as a potential threat to his hearth-mate. He'd bring back some sort of animal he had "killed" and then, as Loki went to fetch it, the animal would spring up and leap away, causing Loki to chase after with with a curse, a flurry of magic, or a makeshift weapon. He couldn't even be angry because Gudrun's smile and chuckle made everything just fade away.

He watched Gudrun on her healing rounds and how she and Halvor brought food back to the encampments for the injured and healing. She insisted they rest and recover even after she healed them, making sure they had enough to last them many weeks rather than a mere handful of days.

Halvor, he realised, was quite the mighty hunter, and he had no qualms about bringing back his kills back to his family. Gudrun, also, had no problems sharing her spoils fairly with the great cat, making sure he was kept well-fed and in top condition. He wondered if it because they tended to hunt together, or she had simply always shared with him. The dragons of Ásgarðr, he knew were not so agreeable and would eat both the trainer as well as their rider if they dropped their guard even for a moment.

It didn't take long for Loki to realise that many things came full circle. As he sat consoling a young boy about the loss of his first hearth-beast, he realised that said hearth-beast had been the very frost wyrm his brother had so proudly decapitated and dragged back to Ásgarðr. Pangs of guilt gnawed at his stomach as he remembered the fleeting look of absolute horror on Gudrun's face just before the mask had snapped back into place.

"He didn't mean to get out," the boy had wailed, sniffling. "I miss him so much! Mummy raised him since he was a hatchling. I thought— I wanted—" He made a wrinkled face. "I just wanted to see someplace outside Jötunheimr. I just wanted— I wanted to see if the stories were true! And— And—"

The boy wailed. "They saw me and tried to attack _**me**_ , so he attacked them. He was just defending me! He died because _**I**_ didn't believe that the worlds outside of Jötunheimr were really dangerous! I believed nothing could be as bad as Jötunheimr! He was mummy's best friend. I got my mummy's best friend killed. I can hear all the other kids whispering about how I killed a hearth-beast. I'll never live it down, ever! I'll be scorned forever. No one will ever trust me again. No one will want to be friends with me!"

Loki, who had only just started to pick up the fluidity of the language, found that it was like remembering a skill. His teachers had said that the gods could be understood by any mortal in their own language, but the Jötunn were not mortals. He wasn't sure how it worked or even if it did, but he was picking up the language well enough to know that Gudrun made the language sound like a song. The Jötunn child, filling his language with sobs and cries, was a hard study, yet by the end of the day, he found he wanted to help him.

"I want to help him," Loki said quietly to Gudrun one evening.

"Shouldn't you be back at the palace doing whatever it that princes of Ásgarðr do?"

Loki shrugged. "Thor is too busy regaling them with stories of his great prowess in many things. Unlike him, my duties are done early and my free time is rarely spent in the company of others."

Gudrun tilted her head. "As you say, my Prince, but I'm sure the court misses you."

"Loki," Loki said.

Gudrun frowned. "My Prince?"

"Just Loki. Please, unless you are in front of the All Father or my mother, ok— the court— just call me Loki. Please."

Gudrun looked uncomfortable.

Loki's hand wrapped around her wrist. "I beg you. The formalities that once amused and even were expected— I do not wish them with you." He brushed a strand of hair from her face, pulling her chin up with his fingers to look into her eyes. "What I want for you is powerful," he confessed. "More than the groveling sycophants who kiss my boots in the hopes for the crown."

Gudrun shook her head, looking down again. "I am well aware of your tricks, my Prince," she said. "The crown does not interest me."

Loki let out a low growl, his eyes growing crimson as he seemed to scent her like Halvor on the hunt.

Gudrun's eyes widened. "No, you cannot mean it."

"I want you," he said, his eyes wild, primal. "I need you. Please— I wish to touch every part of you, to feel you against me."

"I am no one," she replied, pushing him away weakly, but the moment her skin touched his, he shuddered, his skin turning a most distinctive shade of blue.

Loki, barely able to speak, looked at her with his intense gaze.

Gudrun slowly reached out to touch his face, tracing the ridges that had formed on his skin. Loki latched onto the soft skin of her wrist and stared at her, his breathing husky and his body tense like a spring. It was clear all he saw was her, oblivious to the changes going on in his own body— changes that blinded him to anything but her.

She knew it well, for every Jötunn of age was driven to find and connect with their mate.

But Loki—

Gudrun knew Loki had no idea of his true heritage. He spent his life looking so Asgardian that only those who saw the small things— the reddening of his eyes and the runic symbols forming over his skin. The larger things, such as the blue tinge to his skin, had obviously not happened before. Suddenly, the reason why Odin's need to preserve the peace between Jötunheimr and Ásgarðr became ultimately clear. His son, somehow, was Jötunn or at least partly so. His smaller stature for a Jötunn and taller stature for an Asgardian seemed to place him in a strange in-between place.

And that son wanted _her_.

She knew they were both doomed if this was what his soul— and she knew with Jötunn that was exactly what it was— ached for her.

But why her? She was nothing to the royal court. Sure they had bantered before, even getting along, perhaps even enjoyed each other's company before then, but Loki had a reputation of playing with people's minds and leaving them baffled. Her mind told her he would lay with her and cast her aside like all the others, but her heart said with the way he was acting here and now—he would be unable to see anyone but her. He would cross the floes during the spring breakup to find her and perhaps the very Realm of Helheim.

With great difficulty, she pushed him away. "This is no small thing, Prince Loki. What you want is forever. It cannot be undone. If this is what you want, truly, I will accept the fire and ice of your embrace, but if there is any doubt in you, I beg you fight the fever and remember yourself."

Loki's eyes burned crimson, but his face twisted in confusion. "Do you not want me?" His voice was a whisper, pained and oddly vulnerable.

"My Lord Prince," she replied. "Want of you is not the problem. Whether you would want of me tomorrow or a week from now— that is a problem."

"I would never—"

She put her finger to his lips. "I know you have left others broken for want of you, my Prince."

"Because they were not you," he answered. He seemed confused by his own words, but realisation dawned as the truth settled inside his mind. "It's you I want. More now than ever."

He breathed against her temple, his lips ghosting across her skin. "Will you trust me? Will you have me?"

Gudrun closed her eyes. "Yes."

Loki reached for her, and it was done. His arms wrapped around her, and she let out a ragged sigh of pleasure as his magic swirled around her— his power, his strength, and the power of his mind. His face pressed into her neck as his arms caged her completely, the tickle of his breath against her skin unmaking her as she was also remade.

"Gudrun," he whispered.

"Loki," she replied.

His mouth sought hers as he lay her on her back and moved over her. The flood of his need breached her mind and left her panting. Her eyes fluttered as his teeth found her neck and left their mark on her throat. Their bodies moved together, slowly exploring every contour and sensation, but it grew more heated and driven.

When he joined with her, her vision clouded as their bodies and magic merged together. She felt herself falling, falling into the depthless sea of Loki's passion as their souls touched like droplets of water—tiny, countless invisible filaments stretching outward to assimilate the other towards the inevitable merge.

The last thing she saw was the glow of his crimson eyes and the runic markings on his body.

* * *

Gudrun returned from relieving herself to find Loki up and looking a little discomfited. The moment he saw her, the frantic wildness in his eyes eased, and she came to him so he could enfold her. She had always teased Arvid how paranoid he had been until Solveg had been successfully impregnated and the bond between them sealed— he who had sworn he would never be so "pathetic" like other males. Solveg and Gudrun had a good chuckle over it. As another female, none of that testosterone-driven nonsense had affected his friendship with Gudrun. As much as he had teased her that she'd be his mate, Solveg had known for years that Arvid was the mate for her. It had taken a little convincing on her part to get Arvid's drive to realise it— and a blantant throwing down of a seal skin and pulling him down on top of her in front of the elders.

The elders had painted their bodies with the runic paint and blessed their union, as per the tradition and then shoved them into a shelter with a pile of food. Jötunn, at least the frost giants at least, were very blasé about sexuality. Straight to the point, more often than not, full of teasing amongst the others, and forever making bets on who would pair with who before the spring ice breakup. It wasn't to say that young pairs didn't experiment before they were well and truly mated via a bond, but the adult males seemed to have a sort of switch that flipped on that tunnel visioned them to one particular female. Younger couples tended to be safe from such responsibility until that chemical switch turned on for them, the male most of all. The female could, if she wished, turned a blind eye to the male's ardour and deny him, forcing him to prove himself further or in truly rare cases, deny him completely. That, however, was exceedingly rare. Such females tended to smother any other suitors by reputation alone, and a single Jötunn lived a harder life. That was just fact.

Loki, gaining a bit of sanity with the feel of her close, took in the blue of his skin and the glowing paint that had been traced on his runes. "What happened to me?"

Gudrun smiled. "Elders paint the new pairs with runic paste to bless the pair with a strong bond and—" Gudrun flushed. "Many healthy children."

Loki startled. "I am not Asgardian," he whispered, his face torn.

"Nonsense, you are the son of the All-Father," Gudrun said. "You are blessed amongst the gods. Do you think something as trivial as the colour of your skin matters?"

"I am a— enemy of Ásgarðr," he whispered.

"You are a son of Ásgarðr," Gudrun said. "Have you learned nothing while you were here? The value of all life? Is that not what All-Father has been working for these last long centuries?"

Loki jolted, his head head lifting. "He's wanted peace?"

Gudrun touched his cheek, tracing his markings with her fingers. "Of course he has. It was by his request my family has been working to bridge the chasm between Jötunheimr and Ásgarðr."

"Why wouldn't he tell me?" Loki asked, pained. "Why wouldn't mother—"

"Because you weren't ready to know the truth, Loki," Gudrun said. "You, like most of Ásgarðr, believed the Jötunn to be nothing short of heathens. Barbarians. Even now, knowing what you know. Seeing what you have seen, your first response is to think yourself less somehow. You mother— I've seen the way she looks at you. She _loves_ you. You are her son, and she would never want you to think less of yourself."

Loki's expressions went from one to another, conflicted, but he turned to her, his gaze intense. "You still— desire me?"

Gudrun's face softened. "Don't be daft." She scowled at him, but when he looked up with such a vulnerable expression, she brushed her fingers across the runes of his face. "You're stuck with me, my Prince."

"Loki," he said. His hand traced gentle circles on the back of her hand. He pulled closer to her, his warm breath tickling her cheek.

"Loki," she replied, smiling. "I _love_ the depth of your emotion— something I do not think you share with many others. I questioned your sincerity before, but I do not now."

Loki, distracted by nibbling on her neck, breathed against her skin. He practically crawled over her, sealing his mouth over hers with a primal growl, ending the conversation with the heat of his immediate need.

Gudrun, if she had any protests, didn't voice them.

* * *

Loki watched in wonder and safety, tucked snugly on Halvor's back as Gudrun walked up to the giant frost beast bitch. The beast's dorsal spines and horns were as intimidating as the stories of old. Her pups, frolicking around her legs, stopped to sniff the air as Gudrun approached.

Gudrun, seeming so small compared to the beast, held out her hands palm up, and the beast lowered its head to her hands in a dip.

All of the pups promptly bounced over to inspect her, curious now that their mum seemed to think it was okay. They snuffled and pawed at Gudrun, making curious wuffles and bays. A few tried to get rough and pounce her, but the great bitch clamped her jaws around the pup and thumped solidly it down on the ground again.

Loki watched as Gudrun waited, and the bitch lifted her front paw, giving a soft whine that rumbled the ground. Gudrun held her hands over the paw and then touched one of the giant pads. A golden glow erupted from her body, forming into fiery feathered wings. It spread over the great beast and then faded. She pulled her hands away, and the beast put its foot down, picked it up, and then put it down again. She nuzzled Gudrun in thanks, giving her an affectionate lick that sent her sprawling back into the snow with an oof and a laugh.

"Loki, come pick one," Gudrun said with a laugh. "Borghild says make the right choice, for she will be taking her pups back to the den while she hunts and will be gone for some time."

"You can understand her growls?"

"You can't?" Gudrun said, head tilted.

Loki came down off Halvor and walked up carefull. He extended his hands, palms up just as he had seen Gudrun do, and the beast lowered her head to his palms, smashing her frozen jaw icicles into his hands. The pups looked at him quizzically, tails half-wagging and ears swiveling much like he would see from Asgardian hunting hounds— only much, _much_ bigger. Prepared with a sack of biscuits made from seal and fish, he held out the treats to the pups, and they eagerly came to investigate the tasty smells. As each pup took the treats, they played around and tumbled in the snow, snarled at each other, and generally did puppylike things.

Loki, knowing that the boy was a timid boy, knew what he was looking for. An alpha pup was not the thing for him. The boy needed a mellow beast that bonded tightly to its family and would protect it eagerly but not leap to aggression like some would do. It needed strength but more brains— less like his brother and more like Heimdall. No one ever doubted Heimdall's strength, and he didn't feel the need to drag home dragon heads to prove _his_ worth.

There, being stepped on by the other beasts, was a roly-poly pup that eagerly tail-wagged at his brothers and sisters only to be snubbed and pounced on. Loki knew this pup was the one.

"What about this one?" Loki asked.

Gudrun placed her hand on the beast mother, closing her eyes. "That one is Vebjørn. Borghild says that he is very sensitive and would make a good hearthmate for an understanding family."

Loki nodded, rubbing the pup on the ears. The pup, overcome with appreciation, tried to lick off Loki's face. "I think we found our pup," Loki said, dripping frost beast drool.

"Bowrl!" the pup said, panting.

Gudrun closed her eyes again, and the great beast bitch lowered her head and gave Vebjørn a thorough tongue bath. She nosed the pup towards Loki and Gudrun and nuzzled Gudrun fondly as she made a chuffing bark to call her other pups to attend her.

Vebjørn made a sad sound, whimpering softly, but Loki put a gentle hand on his head. "Do not worry, little one. There is a young boy who is very much looking forward to meeting you."

* * *

Loki found that nothing healed relationships like a hearth-beast— and the little boy he had befriended was no exception.

Orvar, so ecstatic upon meeting "little" Vebjørn, had to show him off to all the other children once the bond was sealed between the beast and the entire family. Vebjørn seemed happy to be the center of attention at last, soaking up all the pets and the love he could get.

The other children, seeing that Orvar was accepted by a beast once more (no longer a beastless empty-hearther), seemed more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, deciding that he wasn't an animal abuser after all.

Loki, too, found himself showered in unexpected gifts for his part in it, even though he tried to tell them it was Gudrun who had made it all possible. They gave him an extra soft sealskin for his "mating bed" which caused him to blush a bright purple, his first Jötunn hunting knife, a spear head for his first spear, a hunter's pack for keeping things close when he would hunt out on the ice floes, and about a week's worth of "how to be a proper male" lessons from the male Jötunn.

Much to his embarrassment, Gudrun had to be with him during the lessons due to her calming presence— his need for her to be close and protected was overwhelming and difficult not to devolve into a growling male beast over his mate. Fortunately, all Jötunn understood about _that_. Even more fortunately, so did Gudrun.

The ceremony for their mating, even though they had not (yet) consummated to the point where Gudrun was laden with child, was going to happen with a few other new couples. It was a time to ask the Great Frost Mother for her blessings and accept her protection in their lives. As an Asgardian, he knew it seemed odd to give respect to another goddess outside of Ásgarðr, but— Jötunheimr was _her_ domain. Only a fool would deny her influence over the Realm. No god or goddess of Ásgarðr swore to protect Jötunheimr, and even Odin said Ásgarðr had to protect all the Realms, not just one.

Loki knew that very few looked upon Jötunheimr with any fondness, save for one family. And Gudrun wasn't even a "true" goddess in the eyes of the societal elite. Yet—

When he thought about it, All-Father had appointed this family with a task that should it fail would mean war between Ásgarðr and Jötunheimr. If he truly believed they were less than the Æsir, would he have sent them on such a crucial task?

Loki frowned. There was more to his father than he had once believed. He used to think Odin was altogether too plain to read, but maybe, just maybe, there was a bit more to him than he had previously believed.

Just as there was more to Loki _himself_ than he once believed.

Even though he had come to accept that his real, bluer self was just as much him as the Asgardian, he found himself glamouring himself to appear as he once was. It wasn't shame as much as he wasn't used to his new face— his real face. Gudrun accepted him regardless, and that had healed a part of him he hadn't even realised needed healing. The elders speculated that he would end up having some "larger" concerns once the bond was sealed to the Great Frost Mother— perhaps his stature was simply due to being parted from the Jötunheimr for an exceedingly long time.

Yes, glamour for now, he figured.

All-Father may know. Heimdall may know, but showing up to Ásgarðr about thirty-some feet taller and with a cobalt blue complexion was probably _**not**_ going to go over well. And what would that mean for Gudrun?

The elders seemed to think that the Great Frost Mother provided for her faithful. What, he wondered, was unclear.

Watching the boy—Orvar—looking so happy and accepted again made Loki feel as though he had comforted his younger self. It felt _good_. He even used his tricks to amuse the children— all safely in sight of Gudrun, whose absence caused him to become uncomfortable.

That, too, they said would ease when the bond was well and truly sealed, something that could only happen if Gudrun carried their child. It was not for lack of trying—

He wondered, however, what his mother would think… sneaking off to Jötunheimr and coming back mated.

It was not exactly the Asgardian way.

He knew that Sigyn had her eyes on him, and once he had even had his eyes on her. All of that had disappeared like fog before the sun when Gudrun had fascinated him. All it had taken was realising that her head was neither vacant nor obsessed with ascending the Asgardian social structure. Sigyn did indeed possess talent and beauty, but she was an unapologetic social climber. Loki had no idea if she was even capable of caring for anyone other than herself.

He also knew with absolute certainty that if Sigyn knew he was Jötunn, she would far rather shank him with her dagger than look at him.

He wondered what their child would look like as he looked to Gudrun and saw her lift her head from petting Vebjørn's belly. She grinned at him with such genuine radiance that it filled him with warmth and made him content. Peaceful.

Yes, when it came time to give thanks to the Great Frost Mother, he would do it.

Gladly.

For the Great Frost Mother had brought him Gudrun, and she was his proof that there was more at work than the gods of Ásgarðr.

* * *

As Loki stood in front of the Elders, Gudrun's fingers brushed tenderly against his, and he smiled down at her. His hand curled around her wrist as they watched the Elders take different coloured paints and trace runes on the gathered attendee's faces.

The ceremony was on a frozen dias overlooking the wild, broken sea, and nearby the huge dorsal fin of the great frost whale poked above the water in an intimidating arc. An assortment of choice whale and seal parts lay piled high on a frozen altar, decorated with the rare and seemingly impossible blue flowers that grew under the snows. Despite the horrible storms that had blown in over the night, the weather was surprisingly clear and the waves as calm as any could remember.

The hearth-beasts were all sprawled out in a lazy arc, using the time to socialise with each other and catch up on the news. It was hard to say what the beasts said to each other or even if they did in the same way they communicated with Gudrun, but it was obvious that they knew each other well. Some of them sported fancy decorations, some had their faces painted, and some of them had bells dangling from their horns or around their neck. All of them had a lazy, content feel to them as if they knew this day was very special.

Gudrun was dressed, Jötunn-style, in pristine white seal fur and frost-pearls, all of which Loki had dove into the oyster fields to harvest. Each pearl had been carved with runes for both of their names and a wish for the future for their family. Gudrun had crafted him a sealskin sash embroidered with runes that matched his markings to go over his Asgardian armour, knowing that he couldn't cast aside over a thousand years of upbringing in a few months despite how far he had come.

Most of the Jötunn wore very little, blessed with the tolerance to the icy climate. It wasn't to say they didn't appreciate the hearth fires, for they did, but the hearths offered a kind of relaxing warmth that never became uncomfortably warm for such arctic beings as well as a place that could cook food, warm drinks, and provide light in some of the seasons' darkest times.

This day, however, even the weather seemed to sense it was special. The darkness of the arctic winter had eased. The sun had spread across the snows like it was spring, and the rarest of arctic blooms burst from the snow in a surge of colour. Loki couldn't help but have a surge of respect and admiration for how significant such "small" details made for these rugged people— something Ásgarðr did not truly have in their almost perfect climates and changes between the seasons.

The great frost whale, whose span was easily larger than the entire encampment had they lined the shelters up in a single row, floated on the surface, watching. Perhaps, the Great Frost Mother's most sacred beast was being her eyes and ears on the day's events. Offerings to Her tended to be left on the floes directly after a kill, and almost always were taken by the great whales. There was never any disrespect in allowing it to go to Her sacred animal or even a scavenging beast. All were Her domain, and the act of setting aside for Her taking, in whatever form that was, was the only concern most frost Jötunn had.

"My friends," Elder Jarl greeted. "Today is a most wonderful day. Today we not only acknowledge the greatness of the Great Frost Mother's gifts but also her love for us reflecting in our love for our mates, our families, and our hearth-beasts." He smiled as he looked over to where the gathered children were tucked in the ring of beasts, playing with each other under the beasts' watchful eyes— too young to appreciate the significance of the day, but not so young as to realise an opportunity to be social and play together.

"Because of Her," Elder Runa said, we find our hearth-mates and our lifemates, our family, and our most cherished allies and friends. Her fondness for us as well as Her favour can be found in a sound footfall in a place that breaks soon after to the spear that does not break when we need it most. She tests us always, but we rise to succeed, and she always rewards Her faithful."

"Today, we celebrate the coming of age of those who have found their lifemates, even when the darkness outweighs the sun and the ice spreads far across the frozen ocean," Elder Jarl said. "We celebrate not only our bonds to our Great Frost Mother, but the the most glorious forging of peace between us and that of Ásgarðr— thanks to love of one born to those of Ásgarðr but on the ice and snow of Jötunheimr and one once born of Jotunheimr and raised in Ásgarðr only to find his way back. Today, we celebrate unions. Unions between lifemates and that between our families or friends, or allies, and our most beloved Great Frost Mother, who both nurtures and tests us."

The elders wrapped soft gossamer strands around each of their hands and wrists. "Soft is the touch of our Great Frost Mother, but strong are the ties that bind us to her, just as the energy and love shall bind you as lifemates for as long as breath fills your lungs. You are two on a journey across the frozen land, but you shall not be alone. May your hearth ever be warm and waiting. May your caches always be full, and the bonds between you and the family you make remain as strong as our winters are fierce."

Elder Runa painted a shimmering blue-white marking on each of their foreheads as Elder Jarl lit a small fire on the small makeshift altar before pushing it out into the icy water. He used a knife to cut delicate strips from the seal and each of them opened their mouths to receive the offering.

"Our Great Frost Mother tests us that we hunt to find our food, but the food she gives us is rich and plentiful as long as we respect the wilds," Elder Jarl said.

Elder Runa took out a sealskin vessel and poured out a shimmering liquid into a frozen goblet. She brought it to their lips, and they all drank one by one. "The life of our Realm flows below us, captured under the ice. Drink and remember that life flows inside you as life flows around us. We are all a part of a vast and endless sea."

Elder Jarl gestured with his arms. "Stand before the great frost whale and be seen by the Great Frost Mother that she may bless your bonding both to each other and to Her."

The huge whale, having consumed the offering, drifted forward, its eyes glowing with a pale red light. It floated just off shore, its sleek body shimmering as steam rose off its skin. The couples walked up to the edge and knelt in front of the whale.

"Nnnnnngggggh," the whale rumbled.

The gathered bowed their heads. The great beasts lowered theirs too, placing their paws on the children to keep them from "escaping" to parts unknown. A reverent silence fell upon the gathered—

And the whale sang a beautiful thrum and mixture of notes, its voice ethereal as though it was being heard through the water. Their hearts filled with happiness as the Great Frost Mother's acceptance flowed through the musical voice of her chosen animal.

 _ **Shing**_!

 _ **THWACK!**_

Tearing flesh, the crashing of water and the agonised bellow of a dying whale heralded chaos as the sacred creature thrashed wildly its death throes. Ice cracked and shattered into countless jagged pieces as it smashed into the edge and into the gathered attendees. Jötunn dove out of the way of the massive creature's body while others grabbed their screaming children, placed them on the backs of their beasts and sent them charging away to safety while they attempted to aid those who had fallen into the icy sea.

A muscular, blond-haired Asgardian wrenched a sword out of the whale's back, and skidded to a halt on the ice even as his cloaked companions leapt off the carcass with him, slammed into a stunned Loki, seized him in a headlock, and dragged him away.

" _ **Foul Jötunn filth!"**_ Thor bellowed angrily. " _ **You will PAY for what you have done to my brother with your evil sorcery and brainwashing!**_

Loki choked, struggling fiercely as he tried to fight off the three seasoned warriors. He managed to get loose, lurching forward, his eyes blazing crimson as runes started to form across his skin.

 _ **Conk**_!

Sif struck Loki sharply over the head with the pommel of her sword, and he crumpled to the frozen ground, face pale and expressionless. Snatching him up, they leapt up onto a previously-hidden hovercraft and zoomed away, pausing only briefly as Thor took a running leap to land on their escape craft. He slashed away at the pursuing beasts, slicing their snarling muzzle, chest, and legs as they tried to topple the craft.

Halvor's jaws clamped around the craft's side, crushing the metal in a shower of sparks. He began to shake the craft violently as smoke started to seep out of the bent joints. Thor poised his sword up to smash it down on Halvor's head, aiming between the eyes to sink it deep into the huge feline's brain.

 _ **Crack.**_

 _ **Crack.**_

 _ **Crack.**_

 _ **NNNNNGGGGHHHHH!**_

The jaws of a monstrous whale opened wide to consume the craft, rows and rows of jagged teeth glistening as they poised to crush the craft into pieces.

The giant feline immediately released the craft and went bounding off through the icy drifts, his huge body bouncing like a ball as it skidded to a halt on the snow. The craft lurched, smoked, and sparked ominously as Volstagg slammed his fist over and over on the control panel before Sif punched him, shoved him aside, and hurriedly pressed a combination on the panel. The craft spurted and puttered before flying off across the floes, leaving a billowing trail of black smoke behind.

Back at the destroyed grounds, a sopping, one-eyed Asgardian god pushed the victims of the dunking up onto the ice. Frigga moved to pull heated blankets over them as she helped them ascend to more stable land. Sizes dwarfed by the Jötunn, the two Asgardians looked like children, and that had kept them unnoticed in their snow-white cloaks. Having made the choice to help the immediate victims of the dying whale over the chase of their errant son and his rule-breaking fellows. The unfortunate victims, having been battered and bruised by the whale's death throes, had been in no condition to save themselves, and even those that might have been had been shocked and rendered almost catatonic by the murder of the Great Frost Mother's sacred whale.

Odin, utterly furious, yet desperate to preserve what good will had been forged, focused on helping those who still could be helped. His errant son and his friends could be dealt with as soon as he returned home. Whatever portal they had used to skirt past Heimdall and the Bifröst could be dealt with as well.

A taller than average Jötunn stood on the edge of the broken ice, his hands clutching a torn piece of sealskin that had part of Loki's familiar runes and a few of the treasured, etched frost pearls. His face was twisted in anger and grief. His hand tightened around it as he stormed over, his expression well beyond fury.

"This is the second time in less than four turns of the cycle that Thor, son of Odin, has wrought havoc upon our people. First, he kills the lifelong hearth-mate of a beast merely trying to protect a child, then he slays a sacred whale on the very day we wished to cement peace between our peoples—"

Arvid's crimson eyes blazed with something deeper than hate. "My hearth-sister has been lost to me. Our healer has been lost to us. Our bringer of fire and the speaker for our Goddess has been list to us. Where is the justice in this? Where is the so-called benevolence of the mighty Asgardian gods? The first we had to forgive, for the child in question had left Jötunheimr and trespassed in a land with a well-known hatred for our people, but _**this**_ is Jötunheimr! This, of all places, our beloved Goddess' most sacred whales, our sacred rites, and our holy celebrations should always be safe!"

A simmering anger was tangible among the gathered. The shock was replaced by anger. The blood of great whale still steamed on the ice, it's body warped and twisted where Thor had sliced it from head to tail in the middle of its song.

"I swear to you, he _**will**_ be severely punished," Odin stated firmly, looking to Frigga. Frigga looked back, visibly pained.

"You will slap him on the wrist?" Arvid snarled. "We _**know**_ he is your son. The son who has brought chaos and death to many more than our people, Thor Odinson has left his mark across the Nine Realms. All in the name of glory as he pitches for the ultimate war."

Odin straightened, jaw tightening. "I _**swear**_ to you, he will be suitably punished for this most grievous wrong," he said. "I swear it on Yggdrasil and the Well of Urd. I do not wish war with Jötunheimr."

The Jötunn whispered amongst themselves in their own language.

Arvid looked up from speaking to those that Odin had saved from the frozen sea. "Your deeds today do not make right what your son hath done, Odin, son of Bör, but because of your actions, Jötunheimr will remain at peace with Ásgarðr— provided your son is punished and word of it reaches all Nine Realms." Arvid clutched the torn sealskin in his hand. "You _**will**_ honour her as she deserves in Ásgarðr," he said with his voice dangerously low.

"I will," Odin said, the ice forming on his clothes as the fought not to shiver. The flames that had been plentiful around the camp struggled to remain— Gudrun's gift was quickly fading.

The weather, that had been so clear and mild, was dropping digits fast. Snow swirled and obscured the land. Ice formed over the sea, cutting off the access to the winter fish. The roars of the hearth-beasts fighting the more aggressive wilder beasts that roamed the ice shelves echoed in the encroaching snow-blind darkness.

Above them, a blood-red moon hung in the sky, casting the land in a disturbingly crimson light.

Arvid's face was as still as a statue. "Get out of our land, Asgardians. You may not have participated in the cruel deeds performed this day, but you are not welcome here with our grief and amongst our dead. Get out of my sight."

Odin's face was grim as he took his wife's hand. He bowed his head before looking up. "Heimdall, take us home."

The brightness of the Bifröst surrounded them, and they were gone within seconds.

Countless crimson eyes glowed in the growing dark of the icy Jötunheimr night as the last of the once-plentiful blue-white hearthfires snuffed out and disappeared.

* * *

Thor went crashing through about five lines of armour suits after Odin soundly decked him in front of the shocked royal court's dining area. He landed with an almighty crash at the far end of the longest table.

" _ **Do you wish to bring war to Ásgarðr?!"**_ Odin bellowed.

Thor, totally confused, rubbed his now-throbbing jaw. "Yes, father. Is that not what you said? The glory? The greatness!"

"Have you learned _**nothing**_ from my lessons of what happened after the last war?!" Odin seethed, fury practically radiating off of his body.

"I may have only thought the glory worth staying for," Thor mumbled.

Odin seized Thor by the collar, yanking his son up and forcing him to look him squarely in the eye. "For the last three thousand years I have had my most trusted family serving to bridge the yawning chasm between Jötunheimr and Ásgarðr. So dutiful were they, that they had a child out on that frozen wasteland, one who was raised there and here to understand both worlds better. For the last thousand years, she has served, mending the wounds created by my arrogant father as the Goddess of Empathy. And you—"

Odin's hand tightened around his son's neck. "You broke into Jötunheimr against my direct orders. You stole a royal hovercraft. You murdered a sacred beast of the Jötunn people. You almost murdered a score of new couples during their Rite of Marriage. You hit your brother so hard on the head that he can't even remember the last year, and the healers don't know if he'll ever be right again, _**AND—**_ "

Odin's face twisted with righteous wrath. "You lost us our Goddess of Empathy, your younger brother's beloved, his _**betrothed**_ on their very wedding day!"

Gasps spread around the court dining tables as the news of Loki's condition, that he had a betrothed to begin with, and all the other offenses piled up.

Thor's face wrinkled in confusion. "I _**saved**_ my brother from the embarrassment of a marriage to a lowly sorceress! One who would rather show off her womanly assets around heathen barbarians! Did you not _**see**_ how she was in a state of undress like one of those heath—"

Odin's grip tightened on Thor's collar. "I had planned to present you with Mjolnir when you proved yourself both capable of battle and protecting our people, but I see now that the sound judgement and wisdom required of its wielder are sorely lacking within you."

Odin flung him bodily towards the Warriors Three and Sif, who had been attempting to quietly slink away unseen. They floundered together in an ungainly pile, their eyes very wide.

"For your crimes against your King, Jötunheimr, Prince Loki, and the Lady Gudrun, I sentence all of you to learn humility on Miðgarðr. Your powers shall be stripped from you. Your memories shall be forfeit. Your bodies will be fully mortal and your lives will be vulnerable to disease, injury, and death. When or _**if**_ you learn true humility and feel genuine compassion for the plight of mortals and those less advantaged than yourselves, then you will be allowed to remember yourself. Then and _**only**_ then will you start your quest for atonement to regain your true selves and be welcome again on Ásgarðr."

Odin slammed down his spear, and the ground beneath them cracked and fell away, sucking them down into the plasma void that powered the Bifröst. As the ground seamlessly mended itself, Odin closed his eye, a single tear rolling down one cheek.

* * *

 **A/N:** Oops… another bunny was wriggling in our bunny bin. Dang you breeding bunnies. STAHHHPPP!


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** I blame… insomnia

 **Beta Love:** The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard

* * *

 **Blink of the Gods**

 **Chapter 2**

 _Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts…_

 _perhaps the fear of a loss of power._

 _\- John Steinbeck_

* * *

 _ **END OF THE SECOND WIZARDING WAR!**_

* * *

 _ **Heroes Harry James Potter and Ronald Bilius Weasley Defeat Thomas Marvolo Riddle, the Self-Styled Lord Voldemort!**_

* * *

 _ **Muggleborn Hermione Granger Arrested, Charged as a Dark Witch and Traitor to the Light! Heroes and Former Best Friends State: "She's a Danger to the Public!" and "She's Sodding Mental!"**_

* * *

 _ **Acting Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt Resigns, States: "Hermione Granger is Innocent but the Ministry is Corrupt as Ever!"**_

* * *

 _ **Headmistress Minerva McGonagall Asked to Resign After Public Support of Hermione Granger's Innocence**_

* * *

 _ **Record Amount of Failing Students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Under Headmaster Horace Slughorn!**_

 _ **Multiple Professors Resign in Support of Former Headmistress Minerva McGonagall!**_

* * *

 _ **Graduates of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Consistently Fail N.E.W.T.s and Basic Hiring Requirements**_

* * *

 _ **Harry Potter Revamps Auror Hiring Requirements to Buff Up Numbers After War**_

* * *

 _ **Marriage of War Hero Harry Potter to Ginevra Weasley**_

* * *

 _ **Traitor Hermione Granger Sentenced to Life In Azkaban, Convicted of Colluding With Dumbledore's Murderer, Notorious Missing Death Eater Severus Snape!**_

* * *

 _ **Strange Misfortunes Strike Weasley-Potter Family. Matron Molly Prewett Weasley Accuses Granger of Vengeful Curses**_

* * *

 _ **Memory Vials from the Late Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore Discovered, Reveal Shocking Buried Truths: Dumbledore Ordered Severus Snape to Kill Him Because He Was Dying From Agonising Dark Curse!**_

* * *

 _ **Ginevra Weasley Potter Caught Sleeping with Entire Tutshill Tornadoes Quidditch Team in a Intoxicated Potion-Induced Haze! Brother Ronald Makes Money Selling Scandalous Photographs!**_

* * *

 _ **Molly Weasley Storms into Azkaban Prison to Accuse Prisoner Hermione Granger of Dark Curses Against Her Family, Only Finds Empty Cell! Prison Staff Confesses, "We Just Left Her to Rot!"**_

* * *

 _ **Hundreds of Eager Bounty Hunters Search for Wanted Fugitive Hermione Jean Granger, Lured by Million Galleon Reward!**_

* * *

 _Whirrrrrrruuungh!_

Dr Strange stepped out of the gate and into the room as his cape fluttered over to tackle Hermione with a hug.

"Oh, hello, my friend," Hermione chortled as she flopped on the floor where she had been thrown.

"I swear the Cloak of Levitation loves you more than it does me," Steven said, running his hand through his hair.

Hermione smiled. "He's just very friendly when you respect his magic," she replied with a grin as the cloak wrapped around her and levitated her over to the nearby futon on the floor. And what brings you to my most desolate frozen abode, Master?"

Strange huffed. "Steven, Hermione. You reached adept and earned that right long ago."

Hermione tilted her head. "The young seem all too eager to cast aside their respects. Perhaps I just wish to make up for them."

Steven grunted. "You cannot make up for an entire generation of internet-addicted, Google-it, instant-gratification-ers, Hermione. Nor can you make up for the— what did you call it? — Oh, 'the magically entitled wand-waving dunderheads'."

Hermione's lips twitched in a half smile.

"How _is_ Severus?" Steven asked.

"Enjoying calm beaches and tropical weather, far from the lands of Britain," Hermione said. "He Portkeys in from time to time to remind me to feed myself and insult my Potions skill."

Steven snorted. "He cares for you very much despite his rancor."

"Ah, I know, but he never outgrew that habit to insult first and regret later."

"Why do you practice such archaic potions work when you can just conjure it?" Steven asked, curious.

"Severus has a Potions business. Mail order and custom work," Hermione said. "I do the more— 'sweet smelling slop' that he can't be bothered to tweak some of his other potions. 'The potion should work. Who the fuck _cares_ if it tastes like dirt and smells like a donkey's arse?'." Hermione grinned.

Steven choked and waved his hand, summoning a tea service. "That man has all the tact of a drunken pachyderm."

"He did his job," Hermione said. "I'm just glad he survived the war after all that trying to die on me."

"Saving him is what ended with me breaking you out of that dismal prison," Steven said. "Should I thank him or put duct tape over his mouth?"

"Neither, he hates thank yous," Hermione laughed. "He hates Muggle duct-tape even more." She poured the tea and sat down in the chair, laughing as the Cloak of Levitation pulled out the chair for her. She pet the cloak fondly and summoned two meat pies from the hearth.

 _MrrrrRRrrrRRrrrl!_

 _ **Thump.**_

A huge feline head stuck in through the door, and a great cat pushed his way in, dropping a very dead elephant seal on the floor. After dropping the parcel, he shrunk down to a much more manageable size, changing colour to appear like a very familiar-looking orange half-Kneazle.

"That," Strange said slowly, shaking his head. "That _never_ fails to amaze me. A giant polar ice cat from another dimension simply turns up and adopts you by pretending to be a disturbingly intelligent almost-cat?"

"Half-Kneazle," Hermione said. "He seems happy enough with it. He always _hated_ Ron with a passion. I guess I should have listened to him."

Crooks ate the tidbits from the meat pasty off Hermione's fingers, cleaning her fingers with his raspy tongue and then curling up in the middle of the table, seemingly guarding the shortbread biscuits.

"I can't believe you didn't realise he was a giant saber-toothed monstrous beast," Strange said.

"Half-Kneazles are really intelligent magical creatures. I was a Muggleborn witch who only knew things I got from books or experience, and trust me when I say my experience did _not_ include extra-dimensional shape-shifting felines the size of a cargo barge." Hermione huffed, taking a bite of her pasty.

"The entire Muggle, Muggleborn, pureblood everything is just too confusing for me, Hermione," Steven said. "Give me extra-dimensional invaders and demonic interlopers any day."

"Please, not at the dinner table, Master," Hermione pleaded, chuckling.

"Steven," he corrected.

Hermione smiled. "Steven." She looked up, brows wrinkling. "It amazes me there is so much more magic out there than what I grew up believing in. There was a time when wandless magic seemed like a mere myth."

Steven shrugged. "There are times and places for wands, I suppose," he said. "I even have one for more delicate work in the areas I do not tinker with as often, but I am not— how did you say it— 'surgically attached to mine as are your wizard and witches'."

Hermione snorted. "No, you have a Cloak of Levitation instead," she said.

Strange sighed. "True. When it isn't trying to impress you and open doors and pull out chairs for you."

Hermione grinned. "I happen to like it."

Strange harrumphed, eating his own pasty. "How do you manage to make arctic meats taste like you slaved away in a kitchen for days?"

Hermione shrugged. "I just— it just happens, I guess. Crooks brings them, and I cook them. He did bring me that 'small' whale that I'm still carving pieces off of. Thankfully, being in a such cold place as this, the larder doesn't spoil even without magic. Oh, Minerva left you some books to read. She knows you like to know more about the Wizarding World." She gestured to the bundle of books on a shelf.

"That woman," Steven said. "If I'd had _her_ as a mother, I'd never have gotten away with anything."

"She's a cat," Hermione said, shrugging. "Felines have ways."

"You are a giant flaming bird that spontsneously combusts," Steven pointed out. "What does that make you?"

"Warm," Hermione answered with a cheeky grin.

Steven rolled his eyes. "Of all the desolate places on Earth to create a personal Sanctum, you choose _here_? The sub-ultimate zero 'damn-it-all-if-it-doesn't-freeze-you-first' zone?"

"Bounty hunters don't last long out here," Hermione said. "Warming charms do nothing for them, even if they knew to come here, which none do. Who, they think, could _possibly_ live here?"

Strange shrugged. "You are right, of course. Yet this place— well, you have attracted quite a strange menagerie of wildlife here. I am fairly certain that the seals and other such animals did not live here before." He eyed the clutter of fluffy looking, blue spiders that were skittering around the bookshelves.

"Animals _find_ me," Hermione said with a shrug. "Ever since I started learning sorcery, it was like they just followed me home."

"From gods only know where," Strange said, boggling. "I'm _still_ looking up most of them in the archives. Unfortunately, there are a lot of places out there with dangerous-looking wildlife."

"They are hardly dangerous," Hermione scoffed.

"Have you _looked_ at that beast out there when he grows full-sized?" Strange asked, pointing a finger at Crooks. Crooks just yawned toothily at him.

"Crooks wouldn't ever hurt me," Hermione assured him.

"It's not _you_ I'm worried about," Strange said, laughing. "It's the poor idiot who tries to sneak in and take out that bounty of a million sailing ships."

"Galleons are _coins_."

"They are _also_ sailing ships," Steven pressed.

"I suppose, but sailing ships are harder to port around in your pocket." Hermione winked at him.

"Every apprentice I send to you comes back traumatised that I've sent them to learn from an arctic hermit that talks to animals like they are people."

"They learn their magic, do they not?" Hermione asked, smiling.

"Traumatised," Strange repeated.

"But magically learned," Hermione said with a small smile.

Steven laughed. "You have been and probably always will be my best student. I wish— the Ancient One would have loved you. Hell, my Cloak of Levitation loves you."

Hermione grinned. "I'm quite fond of your cloak. He's quite charming."

The cloak did a happy spin and brushed up against her like a cat.

Steven sighed. He waved his hand to clean off the table and set the dishes off to the shelves. He opened up a hole in the air and pulled out a chocolate cake, setting it down. "As fruitless as this may be, can I convince you not to go to your parents' place alone?"

Hermione, eyeing the cake fondly. "Does the cake disappear if I say I can't risk the Wizarding world to one, knowing sorcerers exist, two knowing Severus still breathes, three knowing giant saber-toothed cats come dressed as half-Kneazles?"

Strange sighed sadly. "I would gladly wear Duggle clothes if it would help."

Hermione snorted. " _Muggle_ , and no, when my well dressed, impeccably immaculate friend summons a magic circle out of thin air and slings us into an interdimensional portal there will be repercussions no matter how inept the idiot that comes to take me on is."

"You are the one who always reminds me that I should not treat myself as a single candle in the darkness," he said kindly.

Hermione inhaled deeply and shook her head. "You _know_ this is different. My parents look forward to seeing me this one time a year."

Strange nodded. "I know. Still, I worry about you. It's bad enough that we only get to see you when something cataclysmic is attempting to break through the barriers between worlds. I never wished you to feel even more isolated than before."

Hermione shook her head. "I am peaceful here, Steven. I've lived with a gaping hole in my soul for as long as I can remember. Here— I feel almost like I can remember _why_."

"We can't expose the Wizarding World to even more mind-shattering discoveries so soon after that last war," Hermione said. "It's not their fault they live trapped in time, clinging to old, erroneous, prejudiced ideals."

"They abandoned you. Imprisoned you. I'm surprised that you would defend them," Steven observed.

Hermione gave him a tight-lipped smile. "A few especially horrible individuals does not make a recipe for genocide. I would end up becoming that Dark Lady they accuse me of being, as great and powerful as their very worst nightmares. I used to think Tom Riddle was the most dangerous being in the world— and _then_ you went and introduced me to Mordo possessed by Dormammu."

"I did _**NOT**_ introduce you!" Steven protested. "He fell into the Sanctum due to a dimensional warp fus—"

Hermione eyed Strange, eyebrow arched. "On my first day out from under your supposed wing of safety."

He slumped. "Okay, so that _was_ my fault." He looked at her. "To be fair, you handed him his face and introduced it to his ass."

Hermione snorted. "He was being an arse, he deserved to greet it."

"You realise just how odd that was, watching my not-apprentice of three hours mopping the floor with Mordo's unconscious body in front of those new trainees, trying to keep a straight face and avoid cackling like a loon? I was a terrible student. You made my training look like a bombing mission gone awry."

Hermione shrugged. "I already _knew_ magic existed. You didn't." She smiled. "Not everyone can be like my parents and easily accept such things."

Steven touched her hand. "Please be careful."

"You know I will, Master," she said kindly.

He nodded, cutting the cake. "Do you want the small slice or the rest of the cake?"

Hermione grinned. "We can split it 50/50."

Strange smiled in return. "You're _on_."

* * *

Loki scowled in annoyance as Sigyn attempted, yet again, to tempt his interest. She flushed and curtsied, batted her lashes ever so alluringly, and even tried to catch his eyes with hers. Loki, uninterested and frankly disgusted, curled his lip in disdain and continued on his walk.

Ever since his brother and his bosom buddies had been cast out of Ásgarðr, many had looked to him to bed them, hoping beyond all hope that he would find them interesting enough to tie him to her. It disgusted him. Rumours floated around the real reason his brother had been cast out to learn humility, but Loki didn't really question it. His brother had always been war hungry and attention starved. Nothing was good enough, great enough, or fantastic enough to bring him "honour." As for the Warriors Three and Sif, those four followed Thor around like a pack of eager dogs on the scent of prey. He did have to admit, things in Ásgarðr were more peaceful with his brother away.

"It's no use, my Lady," Sigyn's ladies-in-waiting whispered. "His eyes no longer wander."

Sigyn made a pouting noise, thinking Loki was now out of earshot. "Gudrun was nothing but a lowly trilobyte," she hissed. "She's dead and gone, and he should focus on what is alive and right in front of him."

"My Lady!"

"You know it's true! If such a marriage had indeed occurred, nothing would have stopped it. I would remain at his side forever, but he was ensorcelled to think—"

"My Lady—"

"A lowborn, good-for-nothing—"

"My Lady—"

"Jötunn sympathiser was—"

Loki was suddenly right up in Sigyn's face, his eyes narrowed and his nose so very close to hers. "Who were you talking about?"

Sigyn's eyes went wide in panic. "N-no one worth mentioning, my Prince."

* * *

 _My Prince._

 _A lovely young woman, warmth in her golden eyes as she looked up to him, drawing his hand to her soft cheek._

 _Loki. Please, call me Loki._

 _The woman, now dressed not as an Asgardian but in some sort of soft white fur and and pearls hugged the muzzle of a giant frost sabre, scratching under his chin and behind his ears as she lay over the bridge of his nose. The gargantuan feline purred and whuffed, pegging her a few times with its rough tongue._

The scene shifted.

 _He breathed against her temple, his lips ghosting across her skin. "Will you trust me? Will you have me?"_

 _The woman closed her eyes. "Yes."_

The scene shifted once more.

" _Gudrun," he whispered._

" _Loki," she answered, her hand caressing his cheek._

" _Can you truly love me, despite everything I am?"_

 _Gudrun smiled at him, shaking her head. "Loki, my Prince, I love you because of what you aren't." She grinned at him. "Your brother, for example."_

" _But, I am Jötunn," he whispered._

" _Loki," Gudrun admonished gently. "You are Jötunn. You are also a prince of Ásgarðr. You can be living proof to two peoples that coexistence is possible, that Jötunn are neither barbarians or idiots. Don't you see? You are not less. You are more."_

" _But, you will be with me? At my side?" he asked, a faint trace of doubt and uncertainty lingering in his voice._

" _Loki," she said, drawing his head close so she could tenderly kiss his forehead. "You worry about things you need not worry about. I would never leave you. Whether you walk the frozen wastes or no, I will be here—" She placed her hand over his heart. "With you."_

 _Loki pressed his head to hers. "You are more than I deserve."_

" _You deserve a good swat for your tricks and your words, sometimes," she said, but when his head jolted up, she touched his lips with her thumb. "But you deserve to be happy. If not me, with someone who can make you so."_

 _Loki crushed her to him, wrapping his arms around her tightly. "It is you and only you. There can be no other for me. My very heart breaks at the very thought of your absence."_

" _Tis the fever, my Prince," she said tenderly. "It will be less— maddening— once the bond is sealed." Her face sombred. "Provided that is what you wish."_

 _Loki made a strange face, confused. "Why would I not?"_

 _Gudrun closed her eyes. "To seal the bond requires—" She looked down._

" _Gudrun," he used his fingers to hold up her chin._

" _A child," she said quietly._

 _Loki's eyes widened. He pressed his forehead to hers. "You think I would not wish for a child between us?"_

 _Gudrun looked down. "Do you really think All-Father and Lady Frigga would wish to come to a clandestine wedding in the ice and snow of Jötunheimr to bless the union of their beloved son to someone as low in status as I?"_

" _Your supposed status means nothing to me," Loki said, his eyebrows crinkling. "Should it not be my choice whom I love, who I want at my side for life? If they cannot bless our union, then I will live my life here in Jötunheimr with you. You are what matters to me."_

 _Gudrun looked upon him with wonder as he sealed his vow with a kiss._

The scene shifted again.

 _The throes of the dying whale smashed the ice._

 _Screams._

 _Gudrun's hand was in his and they ran together on the ice to avoid the tail. He looked up to see the Warriors Three leaping off the back of the dying whale, and they pounced on him, dragging him away from Gudrun._

 _Gudrun cried out as the ice below her broke from their impact, and she was taken into the frozen sea._

" _Gudrun!" he tried to run towards her, but Fandral held him fast with an arm lock._

" _No, Loki!" they chimed together. "You've been ensorcelled!"_

 _Ensorcelled? No!_

 _He began to see red— his mate was in trouble. She needed him! He could feel the bond between them screaming as Gudrun's panic and fear surged until it was the only thing he could sense._

" _Sorry," Sif's voiced said just before everything went black._

* * *

Loki's eyes darkened as his hand clenched around Sigyn's collar and absolute fury radiated off him. "You forget your place, Lady Sigyn," he seethed into her face, heat dripping from his body. "You insult my lady wife and the dead in one breath, then you insult _me_ by questioning my choice in mate."

He clenched his fist, causing Sigyn to whimper in terror.

"Get out of my sight, and if I even see you in my vision again, I will see you stripped of your rank and sent to scrub the dragon stalls until it stops being amusing." He glowered. "And I can be amused for a very, _very_ long time."

He dropped her collar and narrowed his eyes. "And if you treat your ladies-in-waiting with anything less than respect for tolerating your drivel, I will see them swiftly reassigned to someone far more appreciative."

Loki spun, storming down the hall in a blur of black and gold, his emerald cape streaming behind him like a flag.

* * *

"My _brother_ did this?" Loki asked, his voice but a bare whisper.

Frigga frowned, hugging her son tightly. "All-Father punished him and his assistants for your injury, my son, sending them down to Miðgarðr for their atonement, however many years or lives that might take."

Loki rubbed his temples. "Mother, why did I not remember? Why did I not _know_?"

"The broken bond almost killed you, my son," Frigga said. "The healers had to repair parts of your brain after Lady Sif knocked you unconscious. She had struck you multiple times due to your sheer determination to get to Lady Gudrun's side. To save your life, All-Father had Muninn block off your memories until your mind had healed enough to remember them and forbid the court to speak of the incident until you were ready. We all feared you would not recover otherwise."

Loki hugged his mother tight. "I thought you kept it from me because I was Jötunn."

Frigga touched his cheek. "Oh, my son. That was never a reason. We feared for your very life. Your sanity. A broken bond— I believe the only thing that saved you was that you had not—" Frigga's face was tortured.

"She was not with child, yet," Loki said, closing his eyes.

"Yes."

Loki took in a ragged breath. "And what of my stupid brother, whom I wish to wring the life out of with my bare hands?"

"Still on Miðgarðr, my son," Frigga said. "Atoning."

"It is odd, for the last few hundred years, I knew he was there atoning for some sin, yet, for the life of me, I could not begin to fathom what would have caused All-Father to banish him from Ásgarðr. All these years, I thought he had simply tried to bring war to Ásgarðr, never thinking that he had actually done that and more. I thought all of father's grief was for him, his most favoured son."

Frigga hugged Loki tight. "Loki, my son, we were at your wedding in Jötunheimr. We grieve for Thor's transgressions, yes, but we also grieved for what you lost, for you are our son too."

Loki's eyes glowed crimson even as he held his mother. "I still want to wring the life out of him with my bare hands." The flash of his runes glimmered over his skin.

Frigga touched his temple and brushed his black hair from his face. "My son, we all are lesser for the loss of Lady Gudrun, but perhaps your drive can be focused elsewhere."

Loki narrowed his eyes. "What could possibly be more satisfying than throttling my traitorous brother?"

Frigga smiled serenely. "Gudrun was our Goddess of Empathy and Rebirth, my darling. She was a phoenix rising at the time of her death, coming into her full glory."

Loki frowned in confusion.

Frigga tapped Loki in the middle of the forehead. "My son, have you forgotten the cycle of the phoenix? They do not die."

Loki's eyes widened in sudden understanding. "They are _reborn…_ "

Frigga smiled. "Now put your mind to work instead of your fists. Such things were never good on you."

Loki drew his mother close suddenly, planting a kiss on her forehead. "I _**love**_ you, mother!" he said, spinning and running out of the garden and away.

Odin came up behind Frigga and drew her into a hug. "He remembers?"

Frigga patted Odin's hand. "Let us just hope that he finds Gudrun before he finds our other son."

Odin fervently rubbed the space between his eyes. "We can only hope." He looked Frigga in the eyes. "You are sure she was a phoenix? A _true_ one?"

Frigga pulled a locket out from her gown and opened it, exposing a runic frost pearl around the shaft of a fiery feather. "I'm quite sure, husband."

* * *

As Hermione stepped out of the portal, her feet touched the soft grass of her parent's secluded back garden. She waved the portal closed, tucking the sling ring into a thrice-hidden pouch in her robes that went into a pocket dimension. She chuckled at just how much she could carry after having been trained as a sorceress, more so at how much she could do without a wand— something most wizards and witches could only do with great effort or practice. Severus, she knew, was highly capable of such things, but it still relied on the standard matrices of spells involving word crafting.

She shook her head. Best to leave such things well alone.

The Wizarding World functioned in their own bubble, just as the Muggles did, the Mundanes, the mortals, immortals, aliens, and demons. Being Dr Strange's apprentice had taught her much, more so than many years at Hogwarts, but Hogwarts had given her a base to open her mind to possibilities— and the subsequent breaking of her mind to untrustworthy once-best friends had done the rest in forcing her to see that things were not as she thought.

Crookshanks had then turned into a giant frost sabre who had "portaled into Dr Strange's office and 'convinced' him to rescue her from Azkaban". The rest was… well, she _did_ have a one million galleon bounty on her head.

Hermione tapped on the glass of the sliding door. Her parents didn't know of their daughter's sordid past, but they suspected there was something going on beyond their knowledge. Good parents usually did.

Severus had been the one to deliver most messages to and from her parents, all through a complex enchanted mailbox that routed, rerouted, then dropped through a magical vortex into Muggle circulation, and then slipped into a magical mailbox that then routed back to him at his quiet island home on Vieques, just off the coast of Puerto Rico.

Severus, of course, could come and go from her Sanctum as he pleased, being one of the few short of Steven that could do so. Sometimes he stayed there for a while, needing an escape from "dunderheads" in "the one place no one in their right mind would _ever_ go voluntarily."

Hermione had asked what that made him or her.

Severus had arched a brow and succinctly replied, "Imbeciles."

He'd always had a stunning command of directness and tact.

Her parents answered the door with open smiles.

"You came!" her mother gushed, pulling her daughter into a hug.

"Of course, mum," Hermione said, smiling. She handed them a parcel wrapped in delicate paper and a spider silk ribbon, carefully woven by her clutter of happy-to-please polar arachnids.

"Ohhh, Hermione, is this what I _think_ it is?" her mother cooed.

Mr Granger chuckled, giving Hermione a wink.

The silk ribbon and the paper went flying as her mother ripped into the box with all the tact of a hungry alligator. The box unfolded magically into an even bigger box as a cold charm preserved the contents. Inside, glimmering apples, pears, grapes, and plums shared space with blue-tinged oranges and aquamarine persimmons.

Her mother squealed and hugged Hermione tightly. "How did you _know_?"

Hermione eyed her father, and he looked up to examine his crooked halo. "Lucky guess, mum," she said.

Hermione pulled out a cylinder and handed it to her father. "Happy anniversary, dad."

Her father beamed, taking it, getting a twinkle in his blue eyes. He unwrapped it, pulling out an ornate crystalline wine bottle filled with a shimmering blue liquid. "Hermione! Is this that ice wine we've heard so much about?"

"Just three drops into distilled water," Hermione cautioned her parents. "No more. There is enough there to last you all year."

He kissed her forehead. "You are wonderful, Hermione. Come on in and eat. Your mother has made— well, everything."

"I did _**not!**_ "

"Mostly everything."

Mrs Granger glared at her husband, but there was no true heat to it. They both laughed.

"Well, none of this for you for another six months, love," Mr Granger said, grinning at his wife.

Hermione's eyes widened. "Mum?"

Mrs Granger blushed. "Your father and I had a splendid vacation in Australia and—"

Hermione chuckled as her mother tried to be tactful and failed utterly. "Mum, dad, it's okay. It really is. I'm very happy for you."

"Come, come, sit, eat," Mrs Granger said, gesturing to them both. "Why didn't you bring that charming doctor with you?"

Hermione flushed. "Mum, he's _not_ my boyfriend."

"We're not getting any younger, Hermione. Surely, someone piques your interest? A nice man?"

Hermione rubbed the space between her eyes. "Can we _please_ not talk about my lack of a love life?"

Mr Granger saved the evening by bringing over the dishes of garlic and chilli prawns with mango rice salad.

"I was really craving sweet and spicy," Mrs Granger confessed.

Hermione smiled. "You did that with me too, mum."

Her mother grinned. "You're right! I wonder if we'll have another wizard or witch in the house?" Her parents looked quite delighted at the prospect.

Hermione smiled, trying not to let the concern seep into her eyes. "Maybe. Who knows? But… you always wanted me to go to a French school, remember? If you retire to that villa you always wanted in the south of France, the lucky boy or girl could go to Beauxbatons."

"Ooo, I _love_ the French," Mrs Granger cooed. "Wouldn't that be wonderful, Gil?"

"Well, we _did_ pay for the place, Jean," Mr Granger agreed. "We should at least give it a good shake instead of just planning to but never actually going."

"I think you'll love it," Hermione said. "Especially since you'll be close to the lavender field that you love so much."

Mrs Granger beamed. "Oh, Gil, we _must_ go. Maybe we'll like it so much we can move there full-time and just relax." She rubbed her slightly distended belly. "Well, as much as we can."

"You know there will always be a place for you, Hermione," her father said, patting her arm. "And any nice man you might find and drag home for the holidays, hrm?"

"Daddy!" Hermione huffed.

"It should be that nice doctor friend of yours," Mrs Granger reminded.

Hermione groaned. Something wiggled out of her robe pocket, looking around. A bright eyed, perky-looking arachnid looked this way and that.

"Oh my! Who is that?" Gilbert asked.

Hermione looked down. "You sneaky little stowaway," she chided. "This is Ozymandias. Oz is a weaver spider. He wove that silk ribbon for your present."

Mrs Granger, startled at first, looked closer. "Does he bite?"

"Not unless you try to squish him. They're really quite helpful. I have a clutter at home that likes to keep my bookshelves tidy."

Mrs Granger looked closer.

The little spider lifted his front legs in greeting. " _Oh hai!"_

"Oh! My goodness!" Mrs Granger gasped.

" _Nice place you have here!"_ the little spider commented, looking around. " _No house weavers, though. Did you need one? We don't eat much and we work for cuddles."_

Mr and Mrs Granger exchanged glances. Mr Granger gently used one finger to rub the spider's tiny abdomen.

The spider let out a soft purr. " _That feels good!"_ He peered at Mrs Granger. " _Ooo! You're expecting! Do you know what it will be?"_

The spider spronged onto Jean's belly and sized her up, placing its head to her stomach. " _Male, I think. It's been a while. Practice makes perfect!"_

Oz busily worked with his back legs and produced a set of blue baby booties and a soft baby swaddle. " _This should be good to start with!"_

Mrs Granger lifted the spider up and petted it fondly. "You're amazing!"

" _Nope! I'm just Oz,"_ the spider replied. He bounced up and down on all eight legs. " _So, do you need a house weaver?"_

Hermione found her parents staring at her expectantly.

"Happy Anniversary!" Hermione said. "Happy Christmas!"

" _Yay!"_ Oz cheered, raising his legs in celebration. " _I love new places!"_

Hermione smiled as her parents discovered the joys of helpful polar arachnids, happy that the situation had switched away from discussing her lack of a love life. Despite how much she had and could live alone— at least alone as in away from other people— there was a deep well of emptiness that longed desperately to be filled.

But no one, no matter how wonderful or horrible of a person they proved to be, ever came close to filling it.

* * *

"I _told_ you she would return here, yeah?" a smug voice said.

"I didn't believe you, mate, but you're right."

"Look at you, 'Mione. Dressed up all fancy. Like you'd actually still be able to wield a wand," a familiar red-head said with a sneer. "They broke it, you know, when they put you in Azkaban. Which is where you're going back to and where you're gonna _stay_ this time."

Hermione stepped out of her parents' garden and latched the front door, tracing a rune with her finger on the latch as she pulled magic from the Domain of Mnemosyne. She knew the spell had worked when the three wizards frowned, looking around as if they had no idea where they were. It was one of the first spells Dr Strange had taught her to protect magical places from mundanes. All places such as the Sanctums had the wards, but variations protected safe houses and families from being used against the sorcerer or sorceress.

As their faces wrinkled and they shook their heads, Hermione reached into her pocket and blew a shimmering dust outward. " _Obscuro."_

The Latin came easily, despite the fact the spell didn't really require it. Many languages came easily now thanks to spells being ingrained into her mind from various ancient tomes. Some she had read. Some she had fallen asleep on. Some had smacked her in the face and literally _fed_ their information into her. Her master's library had always been a rather—ahem— strange place to study. Oddly, the languages seemed to come to her easily, like she was remembering a favourite old song.

She smiled as the cloud of seemingly sentient fog forced itself into their noses and down their windpipes. They had expected a broken and powerless witch. Let them _try_ and explain what they found instead. Let them even try to remember— anything.

Her hand went into her pocket and slipped the sling ring around her fingers. She pictured where she wished to go clearly in her mind as the portal opened into the frigid cold of home.

"Goodbye, Ronald," she said. "Or should I say… Hermione?"

She stepped through the portal and it closed silently behind her.

The three wizards shook their heads and their rubbed their eyes, coughing violently. One of them promptly dropped to his knees and retched beside the kerb.

Ron lay flat on his face on the pavement. He pulled himself up slowly, rubbing his head. "Uhghfffff."

The other two wizards rubbed their eyes and then looked between them and froze, staring at Ron. They jolted into action, pulling their wands and pointing them right between his eyes.

" _ **DON'T YOU MOVE!**_ " they cried.

Ron's eyes bugged out of his head. "What the _**hell**_ are you doing, idiots? Where's 'Mione? She was right there!"

" _ **Stupefy!"**_ they cried, the beams hitting Ron straight to the chest, and he crumpled and fell forward.

"That was close," the one said.

"Yeah, let's go turn her in."

"You know, I don't think I even want the reward."

"Me either."

"We should donate it to the orphans."

"Yeah, you're right, we really should."

"Come on, lads, let's take this Muggleborn bitch back where she belongs."

* * *

 _ **Wanted Fugitive Hermione Granger Apprehended and Imprisoned, Again!**_

 _Almost ten years after a million galleons bounty had been posted for the apprehension of Muggleborn Dark Witch Hermione Granger, she was brought in by two anonymous bounty hunters that wanted to remain so. The reward was split amongst three facilities for the care of minor children orphaned by the recent war._

 _Hermione Granger, strangely, was arrested whilst screaming loudly that she was actually Ronald Weasley (though no known spell could be found influencing her). Granger was sent back to Azkaban after it was determined she had gone completely insane during her fugitive. While the Weasley family reports that their youngest son, Ronald, has not been around for a few days, they also confessed it wasn't all that uncommon for Ronald to not visit his family for weeks at a time._

 _Hermione Granger has been placed in a high security isolated cell due to her being a dangerous Dark witch who has successfully escaped Azkaban once already. Rumours claim that Granger may yet be sent to Nurmengard, which has been the home of the great Dark Wizard Gellert Grindelwald ever since his defeat by the late Albus Dumbledore back in 1945._

 _As one who witnessed and reported on this Muggleborn harlot's rise to power as she manipulated a string of clueless young wizards during her time at Hogwarts, I am very glad that Hermione Granger is now where she truly belongs— sealed far away from the outside world, which doesn't want her anyway._

 _R.S._

* * *

Steven placed the paper down and raised an eyebrow. Hermione was slumped over the table over a large tome. A half-empty coffee mug sat beside her as three other tea glasses lay empty, neither beverage seemingly having done her any good at all. His cloak, as usual, was giving her a backrub (why didn't _**HE**_ ever get backrubs? Are you seriously jealous because your cape really likes someone else? Get a grip, Strange!).

Strange rubbed his eyelids with his fingers. He needed to stop talking to himself, too. Thank you very much.

A pale hand plunked a foamy beverage down in front of him. "Drink," the dour-looking man said, leaving no room for argument.

Strange, not used to being ordered about, found himself doing just that, even more surprised to find that he really enjoyed the taste. "What—?"

Severus tilted his head. "De-Tension potion. It prevents stress-triggered migraines from forming, but it also makes you feel like you're getting one of those." He pointed to Hermione's massage with one finger.

Steven had to agree that he felt pretty magnificent at that moment. "Thank you."

Severus' lip curled, yet he said, "You're welcome." The dour man eyed the paper with a look of clear satisfaction. "That particular Weasley deserved everything he got. His lack of desire to work on his studies helped Potter become the Boy-With-No-Clue."

"You make him sound like a hazard to the world at large."

The pale wizard scowled. "He was an utter _imbecile_. When he did manage to do something right, it was a bloody miracle. You know that room you have containing the plants you have to greet by name? He'd call them something horrible and get a fireball direct to the face."

Strange's expression embodied frank disbelief. "The names are inscribed on plates on their individual pots—"

Severus raised an eyebrow at Steven.

"Oh."

"I feel I must ask her exactly how she dealt with him. I find her choice of spellwork in keeping Weasley under wraps and suitably contained rather intriguing."

"You wish to learn sorcery?" Steven asked, amused.

"I have no desire to save the world from extraterrestrial beings, demons, or rampaging whatevers that you do," Severus said. "I do, however, wonder what sort of magic allows for such transformation without being detectable by other magic users once done. I would like to know that my ficus was not my neighbour's cat yesterday."

Strange snorted. "Hermione knew they would be looking, so he adjusted her appearance to be what Ron was looking for instead of the grown woman she is now. She then bent his old memories of what she used to look like and used them as his image. Everyone that sees him will see him as _he_ saw her. There is no magic on his body, so none would be detected. The Weave is simply tapping into his mind, feeding the projection like one would feed a pet."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "So, will it wear off?"

"There is always a limiter. Some sort of clause in which such sorcery is lifted. Knowing Hermione, it is probably something related to the very thing that got her put in that horrid place to begin with." Strange sipped his potion drink, relaxing.

"So, the truth," Severus said.

"Most likely."

"I doubt Weasley will ever admit to wrongdoing."

"Then he will remain Hermione Granger a very, very long time," Strange said with an amused twist of his lips. "Spell releases are often very simple, but tailored to some counterbalance of why the spell was put on in the first place. Sorcery is of the mind and will with the magic the flow between them. Your Wizarding spells are somewhat similar, but will and intent are far less necessary to achieve the desired end result than for those who live the art of sorcery, where just a slip of your will can cause you to show up in two different realities and in many, many pieces. Seeing as you were the one tutoring Hermione with silent and wandless spells, I don't think you would have any problems with the transition."

Snape sniffed. "I believe that I have done enough to atone for my transgressions that I do not feel the need to throw myself at extra-dimensional beings, though the offer is… appreciated."

Strange smiled.

Crookshanks took that moment to enlarge himself and grab Hermione by the collar, dragging her bodily to her futon before curling up around her, using his huge legs to surround her like a nest.

Steven flinched. "That never gets less than disturbing."

Snape sighed. "That feline has been with her for a very long time."

"Far longer than you might think."

"Hrm?"

Strange steepled his fingers. "Their bond is deeper than just _this_ life."

Snape's eyebrows rose. "Well, that's probably a good thing. She needs more devoted friends that will not abandon her."

Steven sighed. "And what does that make us, Severus?"

Severus' dark eyes were unwavering. "Her most devoted servants," he said sombrely. "Her honour guard, perhaps."

Steven blinked. "You may be right."

"What of your doctor friend," Severus asked. "Does she adapt well to what you have exposed her to?"

Strange looked at his watch, fingering it. "She's willing to tolerate most of my quirks, but the magic— that is a hard sell, even after all she's seen. I know the feeling. I denied it for so long."

"But she _is_ trying," Severus pointed out. "That is much rarer than you might believe."

Steven nodded. "I know, my friend. It is just hard knowing there is nothing I can do to ease that transition."

"An old friend of mine still believes that Muggleborns are somehow inferior, however; his family has generations of prejudice to surpass. Even life-debted to her—" he said, pointing to Hermione with his chin. "Lucius _still_ doesn't understand how it's possible."

"Life-debted?"

"When one of the Wizarding world is saved by another, their magic binds them recognise the debt of a life saved. I— once had one with my sworn enemy for saving me from a werewolf. He died before I could repay it."

"Yet, you saved his son, as I recall."

"Bloody lot of good that did Hermione."

Strange sighed. "We survive our trials, whether we realise it or not," he said. "Most of mine were in my head, yet they proved traumatic all the same."

Snape gazed thoughtfully into his teacup. "Some would say that karma of having betrayed her is still working its ultimate judgement on those that took part in falsely accusing and framing her. My path had always been that of atonement— for I learned the hard way how one cruel word, even said in anger of the moment, could turn a path to an ultimate end. I was not a perfect person. I was not even a kind one. Hermione has always been a beacon of compassion, and one misguided word would have her suffering for weeks after. And we all know just how cruel teenagers can be."

"I was one of those cruel teenagers," Strange admitted quietly. "I was a vain, egotistical and arrogant bastard. Even as a doctor, I cared more for my skill in defying nature than accepting there were things I could not change. I had to be laid low to be built back up." He looked over to where his Cloak of Levitation was curled up around Hermione to make her more comfortable and shook his head. I think, if I hadn't been bound to it first, that cloak would have chosen her instead."

"I do not understand your relationships with these magical… artefacts?" Severus said.

"They choose you," Steven said. "Much like that gargantuan beast. They assist you throughout life, protecting you from harm and even doing tasks for you depending on what they are. The Cloak is, as you can see, far more capable in some regards than a pair of boots. Some are more useful than others, but they are all useful in a way the person needs. I couldn't imagine some of my students with such tools before they ready."

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. "Students are often horrible and apt to blow themselves up."

"Voice of experience, Severus?"

"Potions teacher— trust me when I say that if someone can blow something up, they will blow something up."

Steven winced. "I suppose teaching en masse doesn't help."

"No, it does not." Severus sighed.

"We prefer master and apprentice, with a maximum of two or three with one master. That is about all that can be handled and still remain intimate enough to see the small things and keep everyone safe." Strange grinned. "I was a handful."

"I can only imagine," Severus replied dryly.

"I'd imagine you'd be a hard one to teach as set in your ways as you are," Steven ribbed.

Severus arched a raven brow. "It won't work."

Steven smiled. "What won't work?"

"Challenging me that I wouldn't be able to learn sorcery."

Strange sighed. "You _would_ make a good sorcerer."

"I'd imagine I'd make a good window washer if I truly wished to be, but that doesn't mean I wish to," Severus said.

Steven looked like he was about to argue when a large feline batted them both down, grabbed them up by the collar and dragged them over to the corner, curling his enormous paws around all three of them, lifted his head so the Cloak of Levitation could move on top, then set his head down over them.

The clutter of weaver spiders silently dimmed the lanterns and scurried off into the darkness.

* * *

 _He stood there overlooking the cliff as myriad beasts romped below, teaching their pups how to hunt, or in this particular instance how to manage a large carcass. His hair, a disarray of black, blew wildly about in the wind. He looked up, crimson eyes capturing hers with both heat and the sort of love that seared the soul without a word being said._

 _His hand wrapped around a sturdy spear that had been covered in glowing runes. The tip was seemingly carved in metal, but it shimmered like the most pristine ice, frosty magic dripping from the blade. "I finished it. The first truly significant thing I've ever made with my own hands without magic."_

" _There will be others," Hermione heard herself say._

" _You do not trust my use of spears, my Lady?"_

" _Other things you make, my Prince."_

" _Loki," he said, closing the distance to capture her mouth with his. "You of all people in this Realm and beyond, should call me by my name."_

 _Her hand touched his cheek, a jolt of warmth passing between them._

* * *

"Loki."

Hermione bolted awake, feeling more than a little disoriented.

"Do you _always_ dream of the Norse God of Mischief?" Steven asked as he sipped his tea nearby.

"Nng?" Hermione managed.

"Most know of Odin, yet you call out the name of Loki in your sleep," Steven said.

Hermione blinked, rubbing her eyes. "I don't even remember going to sleep."

"You were coerced by an extremely large feline and a rather rebellious Cloak of Levitation."

Hermione yawned and came over to sit at the table, silently accepting the tea she was offered. "Thanks."

Steven looked at her with a serious expression. "I wish to use the Eye on you, Hermione. I have a suspicion that there are connections deep within you that should be explored since they are struggling very hard to surface."

Hermione gazed into her teacup. "They are just dreams."

"I rather doubt that," Strange said sombrely.

"Do you really think I have some sort of past life?" Hermione asked curiously.

Strange frowned. "No, Hermione. I think it is your _real_ life… This one. Here. This is the life that is… merely transitory."

Hermione crinkled her eyebrows, shaking her head. "I grew up here. I was born here. I was a baby. I have pictures of my parents holding me!"

"Any with the birth fluids still on you?" Steven asked, seriously but not unkindly.

" _What_?"

"I do not question that you parents love you, Hermione," Strange said. "I simply question if the story of your birth was not quite as simple and straightforward as they claim it to be. You told me that your mother and father always said you were their miracle baby—"

"But mum and dad have a son on the way!" Hermione protested. "She _wasn't_ barren!" She slapped her hands over her mouth, her face twisting in conflict.

Steven placed a gentle hand on hers. "Hermione. You forget what I was before all of this became reality."

Hermione's lip quivered, her hand clenching her friend's tightly. "Okay, but—I want both you and Severus there together for it."

Strange squeezed her hand. "You know very well that wild horses couldn't keep him from your side if you needed him. Nor I."

Hermione smiled and sipped her tea. "I'm so glad you are both here for me."

Dr Strange looked speculatively at the frost sabre turned half-kneazle grooming himself on top of the hearth. "Somehow I don't think that was entirely unplanned."

* * *

Hermione soundlessly snuggled up to Severus, her face buried into his oh-so-familiar black on black woolen robes and sighed.

He huffed softly. "Are you alright?"

"I don't see myself as a goddess. I mean, what sane person would?"

He shrugged. "No person of this world could not sound mental claiming such things, Hermione, but if what we saw together is to be believed— if what you did to destroy Tom Riddle to protect your friends is even a hint of the _true_ power within you, not to mention the things you can do now— then you were never truly a person of this world. You were always something… more."

"Besides," he said. "Think of it more that there will always be those more advanced than what we think we are. Just as the Wizarding World believes they are advanced or the Muggles think they are advanced. There will always be aliens, demons, entities, gods, and slavering furballs that take us down a peg."

Crookshanks eyed Severus' robes like a treasured and overly protected antique curtain, extending his claws very deliberately. Hermione placed her hand over his head and rubbed his ears, and the feline purred, sparing Snape's robes from his claws.

"But usually— such beings remain outside of our awareness, allowing us a sort of oblivious cathartic bliss."

Hermione sighed. "Life was so much simpler when I was just a Muggleborn witch seeing Hogwarts as we crossed the lake for the first time. Everything seemed so beautiful, and just for that time before Sorting, everyone was in the same situation."

"Gobsmacked children who can't listen to directions?"

"Severus!" Hermione thumped her head into his shoulder.

Severus' lips turned up slightly, a soft chuckle gathering in his chest.

"You did that on purpose."

"Since when do I not?"

"Slytherin."

"Gryffindor."

"Not anymore."

"Nor am I, Hermione," he said with a sigh.

"To be fair, Hermione, you were never truly one of any of the houses. You were all of the houses in many ways, refusing to conform into one particular stereotype."

"Minerva once said she caused a hat stall," Hermione recalled.

"I had often wondered, had you been in my House, how things would have changed or if it would have remained the same for Muggleborns. It's reputation for purity was always something of a handicap that made it very resistant to change. Then again. Most of the Wizarding World is." Severus rubbed his chin with his fingers. "It is why they were more apt to believe you a villain than the Boy Who Lived being almost defeated by one of the most dangerous Dark Wizards that had ever lived."

"That makes no sense," Hermione said. "He was a dark, evil man. A psychopath. He obsessed over the Dark Arts for longer than Harry was even alive. To think one fluke of a protective sacrifice saved him from death didn't mean he was the saviour and only reason the war would end." Hermione shook her head in disgust.

She clenched her fist. "That I believed in him so blindly— I was a fool."

"We can be blind to our friends," Snape said. "Even more blind to the friends we only _think_ we have."

Hermione snuggled into his shoulder. "You are one of my truest friends, Severus."

His hand patted hers as he allowed her to wallow in his robes and comfort. "Stupid girl," he admonished gently.

"Could you just bottle your scent up as a tension reliever?" Hermione muttered.

"Only you, Hermione," Snape scoffed.

Hermione smiled. "You and Steven both have comforting scents."

Snape arched a brow. "You do realise you are probably the only one in the world who would equate comfort with anything related to me, yes?"

"I sleep next to a giant frost sabre and find it quite comforting too."

"You're also mental."

Hermione grinned. "Perhaps."

* * *

 _Memo_

 _From: Director Fury_

 _To: S.H.I.E.L.D. members_

 _I don't know what you people were on when you let an entire town of civilians get stomped into the ground there in New Mexico, but everything has gone to hell since then. People are talking about some random guy throwing himself in front of his woman and rising from the dead as Thor, God of Thunder._

 _But now we have some pointy-eared super elf trying to rip holes into our realities to find "his Aether"- whatever that means— and says our world is forfeit. Blah, blah, blah._

 _I want you to put a lid on this and contain it before the general populace figures out what is going on._

 _Oh, and leave Stark to me. Maybe we can utilize him for getting rid of this super elf._

* * *

"Father, please! Let me find Loki and help him find Gudrun. If there is even a chance that Jane can be saved—!"

"You bring the Aether here?! To Ásgarðr?!" Odin seethed. "You bring a human woman here? Do you truly believe that your brother will accept you with open arms and greet you as a long lost friend after what you did? After what you almost brought down upon your own people? You would be lucky not to lose your head if he even saw you."

"Father, this is important—"

"Important to _whom_? Your people? How about Miðgarðr? If Malekith brings down the fury of the dark elves upon all of Miðgarðr, who suffers the most? You brought it _HERE_ , Thor. You brought an ancient, indestructible power of the dark elves here to Ásgarðr. You may have learned enough humility and selflessness in a moment to regain your place in Ásgarðr, Thor, but I can clearly see your mind is still clouded by your attachment to the mortal woman who no more belongs in Ásgarðr than a goat does at the dinner table."

"Excuse me? Who the hell do you think you are?!" Jane butted in, pushing aside Thor in her anger.

Thor flinched. "Jane, this is Odin, my father and All-father of Ásgarðr."

Jane paled. "Your— that means— oh god, I'm sorry," she tried to bow, courtesy, or something to erase her social faux pas.

Odin's face twisted somewhere between confusion and disgust. "You will remove her from Ásgarðr, Thor, before you bring the wrath of all that is left of Svartalfheim down upon our heads, and if you value your people and all of those of the Nine Realms, you will banish _HER_ into the In-Between before the Aether eats her alive and finds another host."

"It was _**not**_ her fault!" Thor protested. "We can _**help**_ her!"

"She touched the pillar!" Odin seethed. "She had to touch what she did not understand. She made that choice and the Aether is using her, and will continue to do so until it gets back to Malekith and destroys everything and everyone. It was _her_ curiosity, _her_ defiance of fear, and _her_ need to prove herself that caused the Aether to bond to her. Her need to stand out."

Odin stared intently at Jane. "Her need to prove herself to you!"

Jane paled, and the Aether responded, surging as though she were under attack. Odin had a shield on his arm just as Jane's Aether blew up, attempting to murder everything in Odin's general area. Columns cracked and fell as a hole blew out the palace's wall. Guards surged forward, and Odin yelled for them to stand down.

Jane looked even more panicked. Red and black particles, itching to destroy, swirled around her. An Asgardian child wailed as she tugged on the fabric of someone's sleeve— someone buried in the broken debris. Blood stained the floor, slowly moving across the broken marble floor. Another child shook the body of someone else— a child who looked no more than five.

Jane staggered back, wrapping her arms around herself, her eyes wide with horror. "Thor, please! Take me away from here before I hurt anyone else. _**Please!**_ "

Thor, torn between arguing his case and the distress of the injured and possibly dead in front of him, grabbed her hand and ran, pulling Jane along with him towards the Bifröst.

* * *

Hermione huffed as a certain silver tabby and an orange half-Kneazle batted at the tinsel as she transplanted the small fir tree into a space in the center of the room. She used her hand to gently and playfully block their feline antics. The fir tree had come direct from Scotland, wrapped ever so carefully by Minerva with its root ball intact, and Hermione had very gently tucked it into some earth, using a heating charm to keep the tree feeling like it was still in wintertime Scotland and not the wintry southern polar ice cap. She watered it one handful of water at a time to ensure the earth was just right.

The weaver spiders bounced, glided on silk, and wove intricate silvery garlands of spider silk, hanging icicles from the strands as they pulled glowing mage-lights into place behind them, giving them a twinkling array of colours.

Steven smiled as he made each light separately, handing them to the gathered clutter of enthusiastic spiders, and each spider dutifully hung the decorations around the tree just right to light up the room with a not-to-bright radiance.

Severus thwarted the felines by hanging the shimmering tinsel up high, and then frowned as Minerva climbed the trunk of the tree to plunk a golden lion tree-topper on the topmost bough of the tree. There was a tussle and a merry chase as Crooks and Minerva pursued and batted at each other through the branches, causing some of the ornaments to tinkle as they clinked together.

Steven patted Severus on the shoulder, grinning mischievously. He traced a complex circle in the air, and hundreds of glimmering stars took their places on the branches, pulsing like their cosmic counterparts in space.

"Show off," Snape muttered.

Dr Strange laughed. "You make better hot cocoa than _I_ ever could, with or without magic."

"I'll remember that in case there is an alien invasion in which they demand hot cocoa or they will destroy the world," Snape said, utterly deadpan.

Hermione's laughter broke it up as she placed down mugs of homemade cocoa on the table. She put down a bowl of something for Crooks, who lapped at the liquid quite happily, getting foam all over his muzzle. Minerva stretched into her human self, taking a seat at the table. Hermione opened a box near a large, silvery web. A few hundred insects flew out and immediately found themselves in a very sticky predicament. The spiders swarmed over their meal with gusto, making happy squeaks of arachnid appreciation.

Minerva opened up a large tin of her infamous dark chocolate-dipped Scottish shortbread biscuits and pushed them over. "Ah, _now_ we're ready for Christmas!"

The presents glistened under the tree, all gaily wrapped and tagged with ornate lettering.

"I think you're right, my friend," Steven said.

A single spider, entangled in a garland, made sad sounds of distress in its ill-fated attempt to draw the last of the decorations into place. Hermione rushed over, gently pulling her unfortunate helper free. She plucked a plump insect from the cage and held it out. The spider pounced on it, quickly wrapping it up in silk and setting it between its back legs to carry it off to some isolated place to enjoy its meal in peace.

"Whatever are you feeding them, Hermione?" Minerva asked.

"Caspian Fringe Moths from Skelctus Krrrgh," Hermione said, not missing a beat.

Minerva arched a brow.

"They are one of the few insects that survive sub-zero climates, and they'll never invade other areas because anything higher balmy freezing point causes them to hibernate. Steven introduced me to a supplier when we found the weavers had stowed away in my robes and followed me home."

Minerva eyed Strange.

"What?" Steven said. "Spiders have to eat too."

"Mind you, they can eat lots of other insects too, but it's pretty hard to find ones that will survive out there," Hermione said, gesturing outside.

"I'll admit that most people do not consider Bouvet Island habitable, at least for humans." Minerva shrugged.

"The birds and seals may disagree," Hermione said with a smile. "I suppose there is that tiny Muggle weather and research station they brought in from Norway, but they tend to only stay a few months at a time. They never seem to notice the odd non-Earth wildlife that likes to appear here, either— perhaps they think it a hallucination of the snow."

"Overgrown arctic fur balls?" Severus quipped.

Crooks raised his head from his sprawling place, his claws extending and sheathing as he kneaded the invisible in Snape's direction.

"And the things such large felines hunt," Hermione chuckled. "Muggles think this island is warm because of the volcano, but it is a hotspot for portal activity. Admittedly, very few things port here and do not either perish or go back to where they came from."

"And no one truly wishes to be posted here, magic to make the place more livable or not," Steven said.

"I'm living quite fine, thank you," Hermione said.

Severus sighed. "Exception to the rules, as usual."

Hermione slumped. "I am not."

Snape's regard shifted as he stared at Strange. "Shouldn't you be, I don't know, spending your holidays with that doctor of yours?"

"Christine is having Christmas with her parents, and I am the one they don't want to see as I broke her heart— multiple times." Steven winced and shook his head. "She wants to do a private Christmas together, provided I am not called away."

"Gods forbid someone else glue together the universe from invading entities for a few days," Severus quipped.

"Technically," Strange said, "they are right now."

Snape raised his eyebrows. "You get a few days off and choose to spend them here? In the sub-zero loneliest place on Earth?"

"Doesn't seem so lonely right now," Steven replied. "Besides, there are a few sorcerer's that dislike Christmas or do not celebrate it, so this is the perfect time for them to shine while those that do get to spend a little time with families."

"Kind of them," Minerva said.

"Kind, self-serving— it all evens out," Strange admitted. "I hear that Fury character at S.H.I.E.L.D. is quite a grump this time of year, working his people to death and not caring if they have holidays."

"Who pissed on his holiday cheer," Minerva said, eyes narrowing.

"Minerva! I've never heard you so foul mouthed," Hermione gasped.

Minerva shrugged, feline-like. "Don't be messin' with my winter hols, is all. There will be words, and hexes."

Strange rubbed his beard. "That Nick Fury is a hard one to deal with. I get the feeling he is not an island unto himself, but he wants to be. Someone is demanding things of him and his people, and he takes it out on his people."

"Grumpy McGrumpypants," Hermione muttered.

"I forgot you had to deal with him too," Strange said apologetically.

"He didn't want anything to do with me. I was only your apprentice back then, and thus I was nothing of consequence to who he really wanted to talk to— the infamous Sorcerer Supreme."

Strange snorted. "As my apprentice, you were in full ability and right to be my stand-in for what that man needed or could know. You were not there to explain the complexities of sorcery. You were there to explain to him why he needed to move his people off a hell-portal before it devoured them all."

Hermione curled her lip, echoing a certain Potions Master's expression. "That went well."

Minerva shrugged. "I think some people need to learn by losing or almost losing the things they care most about to truly snap themselves back into reality."

"All too true, unfortunately," Snape agreed. "But, at least we _do_ get to snap out of it."

Hermione smiled warmly. "Thank you, my friends, for being here with me this holiday."

Snape sniffed, waving his hand dismissively, but Minerva took no time at all to hug Hermione tightly as Crookshanks gleefully chased his jingle toy across the floor—

* * *

 _Halvor chased the woven fibre ball with a giant bell inside, the ringing sound chimed joyously throughout the small village. Whenever one of the kids tried to run up and greet him, he would bat the ball somewhere else and eagerly give chase again, stealthily avoiding all contact with them._

 _Gudrun laughed as Arvid thumped her companionably on the back. "What did I tell you? Frost sabres cannot resist them."_

" _He is like a kitten. A large, overgrown, shelter-sized kitten," Gudrun said, chuckling._

 _Despite his size, he still had kitten spots in his white coat, betraying that he was still growing— something the entire village wondered when he would stop, or if he would. He'd already shed one set of baby teeth, and each fang had made a formidable dagger. Arvid had one, and Gudrun had one. Arvid claimed when he was full grown, he'd occasionally shed them again, and those fangs would be highly prized for rune carving. Gudrun wasn't looking forward to it because the huge cat would whine and growl and not let her sleep until she pried the offending fang out for him, and then he'd want cuddles until his fangs came back in._

" _Come, the feast is going to begin soon, and we should be there. Let the kitten have his toy and enjoy his kittenhood," Arvid said with a wink. "Besides, when the food comes out, he'll find his way back."_

 _Gudrun sighed, rolling her eyes. "He's such a black hole around food."_

 _Arvid smiled. "When he's grown, he'll be the biggest hearth-beast in Jötunheimr. No other will match him, save, perhaps, the great frost whale."_

" _I do not wish to know how we would ever feed a cat that huge," Gudrun boggled._

" _Easy, hearth-sister, he would simply eat the fur whales as they try to escape the great frost whales," he said with a maniacal grin._

 _Gudrun groaned. "You get to sleep with him if they give him gas."_

 _Arvid grinned from ear-to-ear like a young boy who just heard the word 'fart'._

 _Gudrun facepalmed. "I cannot take you anywhere."_

" _Good thing there is no where else to go, hrm?"_

" _Under the ice, hearth-brother," Gudrun said. "I will lay thee low."_

 _Arvid pretended to stab himself in the heart. "You wound me, Gudrun."_

 _Gudrun's eyes sparkled. "I will lock thee in a room with a well-fed Halvor after he stuffed himself on water cabbage rolls."_

 _Arvid's eyes widened, then he fanned his hands and waved them in instant surrender. "I relent! Mercy, mercy!"_

 _Gudrun smiled. "Come on, let's go. We shouldn't keep the elders waiting."_

* * *

 _ **WHUMP.**_

 _Loki laid flat on his face in the snow, Halvor proudly laying his great head over his back._

 _Gudrun let out a long laugh. "I see you and Halvor are learning to hunt together."_

" _I am_ _ **not**_ _prey, my Lady!" Loki protested._

" _Halvor seems to think differently."_

 _Loki huffed, snowflakes gathering thickly on his raven-black hair._

 _Gudrun extended a hand to him. "A hand, my Prince?"_

" _Please, if I am going to have my face flattened repeatedly into the ice, do call me Loki."_

" _So when you finally stop getting your face flattened repeatedly into the ice, I must go back to calling you Prince Loki?"_

 _Loki growled, reaching out and toppling Gudrun down on top of him, his hands running through her hair as he brought his lips to hers. "Just. Loki."_

 _Gudrun smiled at him. "Very well, Just Loki."_

 _Loki's low growl of frustration mixed with pure desire as he silenced her with a searing kiss and Halvor yawned widely, setting his head down between his paws, watching over the couple as they watched only each other._

* * *

Hermione sat on the edge of the cliff watching the whales breach in the frozen sea and the sea birds huddling together in the bitter cold. No one had followed her. The wind cut to the bone and the ice and snow around her home was no temperate haven.

Yet she—

She walked out with just her normal robes on. The cold had never bothered her, even as a child. Her mother would hustle her inside and wrap her up like a mummified eskimo so snugly that she could barely even walk. Hermione would be playing in the snow hours later— her clothes dressing her snowman with tinfoil on their snow-teeth to proxy for braces.

Oddly, her parents simply thought she was "hot-blooded." Hermione hadn't known herself to be anything more than a child who _hated_ wearing jackets, didn't like summer as much as winter, and had a serious love for books that involved her falling asleep in her father's armchair with a pile of them stacked on her lap.

She had also had a strange fascination for dagger fighting that her father had attributed to his hobby of collecting ancient weapons in a glass case in the house— far out of reach of her short arms and equally short legs.

Yet— had she ever really been a child?

 _The light of the world above was fading— sunlight dappling the water's surface was disappearing fast as the coldest water became even colder instead of warmer— one of the strangest things about Jötunheimr._

 _Large, swirling tentacles wrapped around her falling body, drawing her into a strange, unpanicked warmth._

" _Sleep well, my child."_

 _The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once._

" _Sleep, for you will always find your way back home to your mother's fond embrace."_

 _The darkness surrounded her, but her eyes were molten fire before her lids closed and her body was consumed in a sudden rush of fire and feathers. Her body blazed in the darkness like a miniature sun— and then there was only darkness and the deep, thrumming song of the great frost whale._

Hermione jolted out of her reverie, lifting her head as the vision seemed so startlingly clear. Even in the darkness of the "season" she could see pathways of energy that outlined snow, ice, water, and _life—_ or the lack of.

She'd never seen it so clear until the day Harry had faced off Voldemort and their spells had met, throwing them both far from each other and their wands. In the end, Harry had faltered, refusing to use a killing spell even on someone as horrible as Tom Riddle, and Lord Voldemort had no such hangups.

The spell had sung through the rubble and dust like a beacon— aimed straight for Harry's head.

Hermione had launched herself in-between Harry and the beam, taking on her phoenix form in her haste to get to do something, anything, to keep her best friend from dying after all he had been through.

Steven called it a near-death shift— an awakening of Sight into the worlds beyond the physical. All sorcerers had it in some way, but it was always enough to see arcane beasts and entities that could threaten the world. His had been a car wreck— a moment twisted by adrenaline and fear that blasted open the channels of Sight. Some, he said, experienced near drownings, electrocutions, or some great trauma that served as the wrench that opened their reality to show something more.

Hermione's sacrifice, even fully expecting to die, had blown open her mind to "more" or, what they presumed after Steven's using the Eye of Agamotto upon her was that it had opened her to her true self.

And what was that true self? Would Hermione Granger disappear when the memories returned? She had _no_ desire to be a goddess. She couldn't even fathom making choices that affected entire Realms when it was so hard to make choices that involved just herself.

Yet, something was missing. She could feel it, or the lack of it, deep in her bones.

What of this prince— this Loki?

Surely he had found another to love. He was a god whose history with the Norse went back generations upon generations. The stories were definitely different from her memories. He looked very different from the art of the times. What was really to be believed? What was _real_?

Hermione closed her eyes. She couldn't even trust her own judgement on her old "best friend". How, then, could she ever make a guess on something that sounded so utterly far-fetched as being a displaced "goddess" of Ásgarðr. No matter how many odd powers she found herself with, calling them godly didn't seem right.

* * *

" _I'm sorry, Hermione," Harry pleaded. "It just got out of hand after Ron told the story. He was my best friend! I couldn't dishonour the Weasleys after what they did for me! For us!"_

" _Bloody well good what he did for ME, Harry!" Hermione screeched. "I saved your lives and he calls me a Dark Witch? I'm facing the Wizengamot! Azkaban!"_

" _It'll never go through, Hermione!"_

" _Do you intend to testify on my behalf? Take back what you said about me being a danger to the public?"_

" _Wh-uwha?" Harry asked. "I can't! I'm getting married to Ginny the day of the trial!"_

 _Hermione's face darkened. "Well, it's nice to know where I stand, Harry. Get out. Now." She retreated into her holding cell._

 _Harry started to walk away._

" _Oh and harry?"_

 _Harry turned to look at her._

" _I saved your life and his as well. Do let me know if what they say about life debts is true."_

 _Harry, looking confused, continued his trek down the hall, refusing to meet her eyes._

 _Perhaps, had he done so, he would have noticed they were filled with wrathful golden fire._

* * *

 _ **Record-Breaking Snowstorms Bury Wizarding Britain Up to the Rooftops! Saint Mungo's Left Strangely Untouched.**_

* * *

 _ **Record Sub-Zero Deep Freeze Destroys Public Floo System! Apparition Highly Dangerous, Broom Users Fly at Their Own Risk in Epic Blizzard Conditions!**_

* * *

 _ **Ministry of Magic Calls For Emergency Snow Removal, Accidentally Floods Greater London!**_

* * *

 _ **Ice Skates, Snowshoes, and Skiis Become the New Rage!**_

* * *

 _ **Polar Bears Found in Ministry of Magic, Daily Prophet Populated With Penguins!**_

* * *

 _ **Dark Lady Hermione Granger Sentenced to Life in Azkaban As Glacier Forms over Ministry of Magic**_

* * *

 _ **Weasley Matron and Children Accuse Dark Lady Granger for Cursing Their Family With Dark Curses and Hexes.**_

* * *

Hermione recalled many of the headlines due to an anonymous gifter, who she highly suspected was Rita Skeeter, sending her Prophets while in Azkaban. The weather changes had seemed random at the time, but she was starting to suspect she or at least someone connected to her, was protesting in her defence.

As for the growing misfortune of the Weasley family, namely a few, Hermione suspected the disavowed life debt had something to do with it. Severus had said the consequences of denying one could be bad, worse if said person did something bad to said person— but it wasn't like Hermione was the type to come collecting. She hadn't saved Wizarding Britain for fame or infamy. At the time, she had just been trying to save Harry, Ron, and her friends and the school she had grown up in. That Voldemort, at that moment in time, threatened so many magicals simultaneously hadn't really been her priority.

The Ministry, or so she believed after in incarceration, had been so desperate to laud a hero in the Boy Who Lived (not some Mudblood freak who burst into flames and phoenix screamed Voldemort to ash) that they'd gladly framed her up and accepted Ronald's story of glory. Ron, too, had been desperate to change the plight of his nobody family. Despite all the hardship his father had gone through to feed them all, Bill's success, Charlie's happiness in Romania, and the twin's business, Ron wanted a family name that was praised in the same glory as the Malfoys were for the purebloods: heroes for the Wizarding World, if only to Britain.

Hermione knew it, even understood how the last boy-child of a poor family wanted something more, but she didn't appreciate being the sacrificial witch in which to make that a reality. Then again, she didn't really want anyone to be sacrificed for that ultimate goal. Ron, however, had gone even further by selling scandalous photographs of his own sister sleeping with the Quidditch team members.

Strife in the Weasley family was all over the board, but all Hermione knew for sure was that Molly Weasley didn't want her visiting again— ever.

Hermione sighed. She could rationalise it all she wished, but when it came right down to it, her two ex-best friends had sold her out for fame and preservation of a convenient _lie_.

Did she feel guilty being the judge and jury of a man who had condemned her to life in Azkaban without a thought? Didn't she just tell herself she couldn't make decisions for the many? Maybe she was more ready than she gave herself credit for. It just required a little— inspiration.

Or betrayal, a voice hissed into her ear.

Yes, she thought to herself. Betrayal made many things much clearer.

A furry thump and a deep rumble interrupted her thoughts as Crooks— no Halvor— gave her an affectionate slurp and nuzzle, settling down beside her. She'd always thought it fascinating how clear his thoughts had been as Crookshanks— and how confusing. Of course then she'd not known he was actually a giant sub-zero feline with fangs to spare.

Truly, who could have ever foreseen _that_?

Not Sybill Trelawney, most assuredly, nor had Hagrid, who had long coined himself a master of beasts great and small.

Hermione smiled wickedly. Neither had Ron. Crooks had hated Ron with a passion from the moment they met. He'd stalked Peter Pettigrew all throughout Hogwarts, and perhaps it would have been interesting had he actually caught him.

"Maybe I should have listened closer to you, old friend," Hermione said, rubbing the great feline under the chin.

Halvor purred.

"By the way, just how _did_ you learn how to turn into a half-Kneazle?" She eyed Halvor suspiciously.

The frost sabre pegged her with his tongue, rumbling.

"Fine, keep your secrets," Hermione said, making a face and turning her head to ignore him.

Halvor rumbled and snuffled her, tickling her with his whiskers. Hermione ended up in a divot in the snow. She patted his muzzle and sighed, resigning to his tender nuzzling and rearranging of her hair into a disturbing bunny ear formation.

"Up, you goof," she laughed, pushing his muzzle away only to end up with a face full of feline tongue scraping off the top layer of her skin. "Argh!"

Hermione stood and hugged Halvor's muzzle, smiling as her hand brushed over the velvety softness of his fur. It had always been familiar, much like his scent. That combined with the cold felt more like home. Yet, there was always something missing. Something important, but when she tried to grasp it, it slipped through her fingers like wriggling minnows in the water.

"Well, Halvor, shall we hunt for something for the table? I don't think most of our guests have ever eaten as we do, hrm?"

Halvor instantly bristled with excitement, practically bouncing in place. He knelt down for her to climb on. Hermione pulled out something from her pocket and enlarged it into a spear— seemingly made of ice. Swirling runes went up and down the shaft and the tip. She'd made it during one of her meditations, not even realising what she had made until her eyes were open. Her fellows at the Sanctum Sanctorum looked at her like she was taking the entire martial weapon thing just a little _too_ intimately.

Only now, Hermione was starting to realise that her past was slowly coming back into light. Piece by piece, things were falling back into place.

Hermione bowed her head and closed her eyes as she ran her hand down the spear's tip and the shaft.

 _Great Frost Mother, guide my spear that I may not go hungry and that my prey will not suffer long. Great Frost Mother, guide my steps that I may not falter, ensuring that my hearth shall never stand empty and my cherished ones never go without. May Your gaze never leave us. May Your guidance never falter. I am but a lowly hunter, humble in your Grace. I put my heart into Your hands that it may never be led astray._

She had always said the words either in her mind or out loud. Even as a child playing with a stick with a stone wrapped around the top— a weapon that would have broken the moment someone breathed on it— she had known the words. Her parents had thought she made them up, and maybe she had thought the same.

But they were so much more than mere words.

They were imprinted on her very _soul_.

Her actions came automatically, signalling Halvor to surge forward, but her trust in the great cat was deeper than blood. He raced across the frozen land, his footsteps barely landing before he was away again. His feline senses blended with her own, and she could feel the wind in "her" fur, the creaking of water below the ice, the hardness of the ground below the snow or lack thereof. She heard the fractious squawks and cries of the seabirds in their breeding grounds.

She and Crook— Halvor— had always been careful not to disturb the native bird population's breeding areas, knowing that such critical environments were quite fragile. They could live well on seal, the occasional whale, and the underwater fare, all of which most people didn't even realise existed in the Southern Seas. She had to admit, though, there was far more to this particular area than Muggle or mundanes knew. As far as outsiders knew, this island had only a few deep sea species in the depths, and far more things existed in the hidden areas deeper within the island where hidden, vast networks of waterways and thermal waters sneaked into circulation from the dormant volcano, and that didn't even include the infusion of alien cold-loving beasts that roamed hidden outside the awareness of the research station, satellites, or wandering magizoologist.

Halvor's muscles tensed, she knew prey was close. He knew it was, even under the ice.

 _The best seals hide under the ice, often in ambush of their own prey,_ she remembered Arvid's teaching. _You hunt the hunter, but everything we use. The seal hunts the birds. The shark hunts the seal. The great frost whale hunts all— the weak below or the stupid above. You must be faster and more cunning than all of these to survive the floes of Jötunheimr. Feel the vibration under you. The very creak of the ice over the water. Watch for the nose of the seal coming up through the cracks in the ice— the very same the birds will leap from. Watch, too, the fattened pups that sit on the surface, but mark only their location— for bigger things will come for those pups that are true hunting. These are the things that feed families for months instead of days. This is how our Great Frost Mother tests us. The test is life. The reward is food and the blessing of Her Hand."_

Hermione tensed, her hand wrapped around her spear.

 _Great Frost Mother, guide my spear._

She signalled Halvor with her seat and the softest tensing of her calf against his neck.

 _That I and my loved ones may not go hungry._

Halvor took a bounding leap, sailing through the air as if held aloft by wings.

 _And that my prey may not suffer long._

She and Halvor parted as she leapt off his back and into the air.

 _Great Frost Mother, guide my steps._

She threw back her spear.

 _That I may not falter. That my hearth shall never stand empty. That my cherished ones never go without._

Halvor slammed onto the ice with all his weight, and the ice cracked and exploded.

 _ **CRASSHHHHH!**_

 _May Your gaze never leave me._

She saw the fat seal under the ice, stunned by the attack of Halvor's weight upon the broken surface.

 _May your guidance never falter._

Hermione's eyes flicked to a shape behind the seal and then to the ice above— a fuzzy baby seal scrambled across the ice to get to the water, thinking the water safer.

The water was never safer.

 _I am but a lowly hunter, humble in your Grace._

Hermione wrenched herself in mid-air, adjusting her descent. Her spear glowed with a blue radiance as the power of her hunt and her faith combined together. For a moment, she seemed impossibly taller, looming over the ice like a displaced Jötunn. Her skin shone with gold and blue runes.

 _I put my heart into Your hands that it may never be led astray._

She put all that she was worth into the shadow behind the stunned seal— dark water upon dark water surrounding shadow. There was nothing there. There should be nothing there.

 _ **SHINK!**_

 _ **CRACK!**_

Her spear went into the brain of the hunting shark as the terrified seal swam deep into the sea. Hermione and the shark went below the surface, the shark in its death throes. Blood tinged the water, calling other hunters to the weakness of another. She twisted her spear in with a scream that sounded more bird than human.

 _ **CR-ACK!**_

She attached the rod and chain to the end of her spear and threw it up, floaters driving it to the surface. Havor's giant mouth clamped over it and pulled her and her prey up above the ice.

The great cat didn't stop until she and the speared shark had been moved a good distance away from the hunting site, further from the looming darkness and any opportunistic predators below.

Hermione heaved, panting, her body dripping with seawater. Her spear shined like a beacon as Hermione wrenched it out of the skull and ran her hand across it. It cleaned immediately and shrank before she stowed it away. Her eyes glowed with orange fire as her hair dried and rose up around her head like a wreath of fiery feathers— like the crest of a great bird.

A hunting dagger, glowing with runes, appeared in her hand, and she quickly slit the shark from nose to tail. She had pieces in arranged in piles within a few minutes, and she placed the head of the mighty sea hunter on a platform of ice, filled with the offals that returned to the sea. She washed her hands in the sea water and then cast the offering out into the frozen ocean.

 _Great Frost Mother, thank you for your most nutritious bounty._

The head floated out to sea on its berg raft, and almost within a seconds the head of a great sea dweller snatched it up and devoured it. The great cycle was never ending, and respect of that was the respect of the Great Frost Mother.

Hermione paused, for a moment her expression confused by her own actions, but then a calmness settled about her. She carved a large section of the shark and handed it to Halvor, allowing him to lick her hands clean of the blood before he crunched into the offering hungrily.

" _The hearth-beast is the heart of the family. A family without a hearth-beast is a family without its most important blessing. You share your shelter with your beast, as well as your companionship, your food, and your lives. To slay another family's hearth-beast is the most grievous dishonour. One does not, even to one's most bitter enemy. For a hearth-beast to die in protection of its family is tragic but honourable. To allow your hearth-beast to die through neglect or mistreatment is to invite the Great Frost Mother in close to judge you— and no one wants Her gaze in that way, for she is as merciless as she is compassionate."_

" _Will I ever have one, Elder Zakal?" little Gudrun asked, eyes wide as she gently pet the huge frost sabre that guarded Elder Zakal's shelter. The female yawned widely and nudged her cubs over to inspect the little girl._

 _Six fuzzball cubs snuffled and inspected her, pouncing on her and knocking her down into the snow, but Gudrun didn't scream or make a noise. Instead, she let them explore her scent. Each cub sniffed her face and her hands, some of them even rubbing against her palm, standing on her chest, or giving her clothes an experimental lick. One of the smaller cubs meowed plaintively, wanting to join in with his brothers and sisters, but he was still quite small— but his small size was just right for Gudrun, who could put his arms around his fuzzy body and hug him, which she did. The cub purred happily and head-bumped her, getting his scent slathered all over her, then he licked her hair into a fine pair of bunny ears._

 _When it was time to go, Gudrun looked at the smaller cub fondly, said her respects to Elder Zakal and the mother frost sabre, then scurried back home to her parents' shelter._

 _Yet, when she settled in for the night, she felt the pad, pad, padding of something furry squirming across her thick blanket._

 _Purrrrrrrr._

 _The cub snuggled into her so she could put her arm around him , and she did._

 _And he hadn't left since._

Hermione rubbed Halvor's ears and flopped on him, rubbing his muscles and thumping his sides, and the sabre continued to eat. Arvid said her bond with Halvor was so strong she could take food out his mouth while he was eating it, something even adult Jötunn of many years wouldn't dare to try.

Gudrun had answered, "Of _course_ I reached into his mouth. He said he got something stuck between his teeth and wanted it out!"

Later, she proved it again when Halvor's desire to have his baby fangs removed by force began with him stuffing his open maw into her face and giving her a whining growl.

Baby fangs.

Fangs as long as an adult human's arm. _Riiiight_.

As Halvor munched on his well-earned prize, Hermione set to work bundling the shark meat and strapping it to Halvor's broad back. None of it would go to waste, and neither she or Halvor ever had issues eating shark over whale or seal— unlike some seemed to have throughout history when eating arctic sharks such as the Greenland shark. Then again, magic and potions were good for preparing meats and neutralising toxins for her guests, as Hermione had no desire to poison anyone.

By the time Halvor was done crunching up the last of his meal, Hermione was done. They made their way back to their home under the glacier, following the path only their feet and memories knew. With a few stops to dive for her secret farm of cold-loving shellfish and sea-plants, they made it home before anyone was the wiser for her being out stargazing. None of them liked stepping out into the cold, Severus especially, preferring the warmth of the hearthfires and underground heating thanks to the dormant volcano. She'd always made sure Severus had the warmest room in the place as his guest quarters, knowing what he'd had to live with in the damp, chilly dungeons of Hogwarts.

For a magical building, she'd thought they would have taken better care to heat it properly for the dungeon dwellers, but that was an entirely different can of spite that would come out of Snape's mouth whenever it came up.

Whenever she had guests, she was always considerate, setting it warmer for their comfort. She'd always prefered the cold, and Halvor had so much insulation, she was surprised anything higher than freezing didn't cause him to hyperventilate.

Oh, right, she thought to herself. Gargantuan magical cat.

Did _all_ frost sabres have that ability? Curiosity rose up, as usual.

"Well, time to start preparing the Christmas feast, eh?"

Halvor whuffed, wriggling his whiskers to rid himself of the ice bits still hanging off of them.

"Do you want to be the royal taste tester?"

Halvor purred, salivating in response.

Hermione thumped his side. "Come on, you furry old goof. Let's go back inside. You can cuddle up to Severus and warm him up."

* * *

The evening of Christmas dinner had all of Hermione's guests gathered around the enlarged table with great anticipation. Mr and Mrs Granger's postcard from France sat prominently on the mantle where a number of oversized stockings with names sewn on them dangled.

Fluffy weaver spiders wore their holiday best, having adorned each other with red, green, silver, and gold ribbons as well as tiny jingle bells. They jingled as they bounced, setting the table and making sure everything was just right.

"What's the big infatuation with house elves again?" Severus muttered.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I loathe slavery."

" _It's not slavery if we want to help!_ " a blue spider squeaked. " _Besides, you pay us in cuddles and tasty moths."_

Hermione, knowing she was being baited, only sighed. She scooped up an armful of happy weavers and cuddled them mercilessly, causing them to squeak happily and wriggle in glee. She set them down, and they skittered off to do whatever it is they desired, jingling all the way.

"That was a disgusting display of adorableness," Snape said, curling his lip.

"You're just jealous," Minerva retorted. "You want a hug too."

"Madam, I do _not_ ," Snape replied, scoffing lightly.

Hermione hugged him from behind, putting her head over his. Snape stiffened at first and then slumped in defeat, muttering things under his breath.

"Seems you don't have much of a choice, my friend," Strange commented with no little amusement. "Not that you ever did."

"I did when she was twelve!" Snape sniped.

Steven sighed. "And _now_ look at you."

Snape gave Strange a death-glare, but no one was taking him seriously.

The spiders hoisted the lids up and carried them off, exposing the array of food everyone had pitched in for the feast. Bacon-wrapped scallops, sweet potato crab cakes with spicy aioli, marinated shark steaks, steamed lobsters with truffle butter, roasted carrots with cranberries, and more filled the platters.

"Oh my, what a glorious feast," Minerva said, sniffing appreciatively.

Steven eyed the parmesan-garlic yeast rolls and sighed with pleasure. "Excellent."

He lifted another lid to expose sauteed fiddleheads and ruby red-tinted pears accompanied by a bowl of softly whipped cream. "My mother's favourite around this time of year was always the port poached pears with mascarpone cream. Regular whipped cream would never do. It wasn't proper. I'm not sure just how proper it _is_ , but I will say that it was a great favourite at Christmas at every family gathering."

Steven watched Minerva, grinning mischievously. "Your inner cat is coming out to play, Minerva. All this seafood has you positively twitching to roll over Christmas dinner."

Minerva glared at him, but eyed the food with nothing short of fascinated wonder. "Hogwarts had excellent food, laddie, but _this—_ this pleases my inner cat and the human at the same time."

"Only because someone laced the food with catmint," Severus muttered.

Minerva snorted. "I'll have you know that there is _no_ catmint in any of the food."

"Checked already, have you?" Severus replied, smirking.

Hermione chuckled as she took the hands of the people beside her and they linked as well. "Christmas is not always a time of plenty in the things that matter: friendship, family, and happiness. We are very lucky today to have all the things that matter and the bounty which we are about to share. May we always remain thankful for that which we have and some of the drama that we don't. I am most thankful that I see the faces of the friends I have come to realise have never stopped inspiring me, and I am proud to have to have them as friends."

"A moment of silence for those who have allowed this meal to take place, bring peace to the spirits of those that have provided this feast, and appreciation for those who watch over us all, by whatever name they go by."

They all bowed their heads silently and looked up together.

Hermione smiled at all them as their hands dropped. "My friends, please share with me this bounty as I share with you the joy of friendship."

Halvor set his large head on the far end of the table, licking his chops.

Everyone burst into laughter.

"Time to eat!" one of the spiders cheered from atop Halvor's head.

"Well said, my small, fuzzy and quite jingly friend," Strange said giving the spider a lift to his shoulder.

Even Snape's lips turned upward. "Indeed."

Strange waved his hand and low burst of Christmas music sounded in the air. Hermione and Minerva's faces shone with happiness as they all took turns passing around the dishes. Strange levitated a large haunch of something towards the giant feline. Halvor took it into his mouth and carried it over to the other side of the tree and promptly crunched into it.

"To friends, the family we choose," Steven said, raising a glass. They raised their glasses in salute and clinked them together.

Had anyone happened to sail by the lonely Arctic island in the Southern Sea, perhaps they would have seen the twinkle of different colors coming from underneath the glacier. Perhaps, they would have heard the soft music of Christmas music and the mingled laughter of dear friends. Maybe, they would have seen the shadow of a great beast, movements of even greater beasts hidden in the fathomless deep seas. Perhaps, they would have seen the flare of bright colour in the skies that formed into the shape of an impossibly tall woman whose arms spread across the span of the skies.

Or maybe they were too busy enjoying the moment to the fullest.

Perhaps, that was the greatest gift of all on one _very_ happy Christmas.

Late that night, as the soft glow of lights flickered around the hearthfire, one highly satisfied hearth-beast curled around his people, the warm Cloak of Levitation covering them all as the clutter of fluffy spiders filled in the various cracks. One silver tabby curled up, perched between his ears, and a contented warmth ensured their dreams remained undisturbed.

* * *

 **A/N:** And so ends chapter 2.

 **A/N2:** Happy Christmas and Happy Holidays for those of you celebrating other seasonal events. We shall take a brief pause so that I and my betas can stuff our friends and families with tasty baked goods and festive holiday meals (if nothing quite as awesome as Hermione had… gosh!), but hopefully this story will be finished before I go back to school in January.

My heartfelt thanks to my betas, The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, and the ever-elusive banana-craving Flyby Commander Shepard. They keep me smiling and writing, and they are my family by choice, truly.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I blame…Halvor. Definitely his fault.

 **Beta Love:** The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard

* * *

 **Blink of the Gods**

 **Chapter 3**

 _Every parting gives a foretaste of death,_

 _every reunion a hint of the resurrection._

 _-Arthur Schopenhauer_

* * *

As Thor stepped out of the Bifröst, he believed he had been transported to the wrong Realm.

"Heimdall, this is _**not**_ funny! I asked to be taken to my brother!"

Bitter cold cut him to right to the bone, but Thor worried far more for Jane, who he was carrying in his arms. He had some resistance to the cold of Miðgarðr, at least for a while, as it was not the cold of places such as Jötunheimr. That realm was _far_ colder than most, and it required actual warmth-preserving clothing.

Jane's teeth were chattering harshly, and Thor realised his time schedule had been moved up.

"Jane," Thor insisted. "You must hold on."

He pulled off his cape, one of the few warming things he had on his person, and wrapped it around her like a snug cocoon to help preserve her warmth. He slipped the warming stone in between the cloth wraps, activating it to provide some extra heat. Her teeth had stopped chattering, and she seemed calmer, but Thor knew the Aether was only biding its time until it could be free again— free to join with Malekith or some other doomed soul. Malekith would be decidedly worse, as the dark elf had seemingly bonded to it just enough to be able to utilise its power using his own magic.

Thor looked around, completely confused. It wasn't like Heimdall to joke, nor was it like him to do anything without being fully aware of what he was doing, so why—

Was _this_ Jötunheimr?

Seemed oddly cold enough.

"Brother, are you here?" he called into the howling wind and sounds of squawking birds.

There were birds in this cold? He couldn't imagine the birds from the royal gardens doing well in a place like this.

Thor started to walk off in a random direction, but he could barely see his nose let alone anything else.

"Looking for _**me**_ , brother?" a familiar voice said, venom dripping off of every syllable. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Loki stood still as a lamp post in the freezing winds. Only his hair seemed to move. His eyes, shifting from blue to green, burned like will-o-the-wisps.

Thor, his expression ecstatic, rushed up. "Brother! It is good to see you! I am in need of your help!" Yet, when he tried to embrace his brother, his arms went through air as the illusion vanished. He tripped, and Jane fell from his arms into the snow.

"Brother, _**please!**_ " Thor pleaded, "she will _**die!**_ "

Loki stood on an outcrop, his lips pressed into a thin line as he looked at the bundle in the snow. "And what of my mate, my _**wife**_ ," he hissed. "What of _**her**_ , who you condemned to the icy seas without so much as a chance to prove herself? The people who were almost _**killed**_ _,_ they whose only fault were to be born Jötunn and wishing to be married?"

Thor's face twisted in agony. "Please, I am sorry. I swear that I did not know. I truly thought you to be ensorcelled. I thought you out of your mind! But this— she's _**dying**_ , brother. Please! Help me save her!"

"Do you think me a healer? I am not. Take your infatuation to Ásgarðr and let them fix her weak body." Loki's face was as if set in stone, every edge seemingly frozen in place— frozen in anger.

"Ásgarðr _**cannot**_ help her!" Thor exclaimed. "They _**tried!**_ They said only Lady Gudrun could help her now!"

"Whom you heedlessly cast off into the unforgiving sea."

"Brother," Thor pleaded. "Please. I beg you. Visit whatever punishment upon me that you must, but please take me to Lady Gudrun so Lady Jane does not suffer."

"I will not."

"Brother, _**please!**_ "

"I cannot."

Thor's face twisted in confusion.

"I have not seen her since the day you _**murdered**_ her," Loki said, his eyes fierce.

"But—" Thor's despair was thick.

"I have lived a half-life for longer than this mortal has even lived-and then I found _**her**_ , the sole, solitary being of all the Realms whose very life seemed bound to mine, who brought peace to my restless soul, and _**you**_ —" Loki snarled. "You _**murdered**_ her like you destroy everything around you! Look ye now upon what you've left broken around you even now!"

Thor looked at Jane, still bundled up in his cape.

A low growl shook the ground, causing both brothers to whirl, startled.

"You are not welcome here, outlanders. Your visitation was not expected or authorised. Leave by whatever portal you came through before the cold swallows you up or the frigid seas drag you under to your death."

A slender figure stood almost in defiance of the bitter cold. Flowing robes, barely a shift in such frozen conditions, blew impressively in the wind. A gold and silver mask that resembled a skull covered their entire face. The face was frozen in a grimace like the oni masks Japanese samurai wore into combat. A giant creature, perhaps feline in nature— black as pitch with silvery body armor and a chanfron and crinet that covered its great head and neck with a snarling facade over a very real snarling muzzle full of very sharp, elongated pearly-white fangs. Glowing blue eyes stared out at them from behind protective eye shields.

The guardian figure stood silent and unmoving.

"I mean not to trespass, good person!" Thor said. "I come seeking a healer for my friend. She is known as Lady Gudrun! Have you ever seen such a person?"

"Many people have I seen, interloper. Do describe the person you seek more carefully."

"I—" Thor halted. "I do not know."

"How very unfortunate for you. Leave here at once." The figure turned slightly to face Loki. "And you. What is your purpose for being here? Do you, too, have a friend in need of a healer whose face you cannot even describe?"

"The one I search for may now wear a different face, but—" Loki's brows furrowed. "She is the other half of me, the one for whom I have longed for as long as I have felt the emptiness deep within my soul."

Thor stormed forward impatiently. "I must insist! Take me to Lady Gudrun at once! Lady Jane is _**dying!**_ "

The figure looked toward Thor. "Just about everyone dies, stranger, but my patience with you has grown thin. Leave."

The beast beside her lowered its head and sniffed the immobile Jane. Her skin was already turning blue with cold. It growled and nudged its companion.

"Leave your friend here and go," the figure said as it picked up Jane and put her over the beast's back. They turned and walked back into the blinding snow.

" _ **No!**_ I _**must**_ come with you!" Thor protested, staggering after Jane in a panic.

"The _**hell**_ you will," Loki said as his magic flung Thor into the side of the hidden mountain. "We have some unfinished business, you and I."

Thor staggered up from where he was thrown, trying desperately to go after Jane only to find himself hopelessly lost in a field of white as the biting cold closed in around him.

* * *

"Couldn't you have just tossed them into the ocean?" Severus bemoaned as Hermione pulled the mask off and tucked it away, pulling the bundle of Jane off Halvor.

The big cat shook himself, the illusion of the battle armour and darkened fur disappearing, returning him to his usual white-blue fur.

The sounds of a rather epic brawl sounded from outside as it joined the sound of wind and waves— and a few avalanches.

"This woman is in dire need of care," Hermione said, shaking off the snowy garments. "She's human, and the ones above are most decidedly not. There is something alien in her veins— her very soul is infested."

Severus rushed up, wand in hand as he ran it over Jane's body. His eyes widened as he saw the strange veins of red and black particles patchworked across her pale skin. "What in _**Merlin's**_ —"

"I do not know, Severus," Hermione said, "but I think we need to treat her like a cursed object until we can get a better idea of what is going on with her." Hermione waved her hand and traced a complex series of runes in the air and flung it towards the wall. The wall moved backwards, forming a new room with a personal and more traditional bed in it. She levitated Jane over to the bed, stoked the fire, and covered her with thick blankets.

Severus uncorked a potion, sniffed it, and used his wand to put the flask to Jane's lips, avoiding actually touching her. "This will work well enough for Muggles," he said, "at least to warm her up. The rest, well, doesn't look like anything either of us has dealt with before."

Hermione frowned and nodded. "Halvor said she smells human, but the other two up there do not. They _look_ human, but—"

"Who knows," Severus finished her thought. "The company we keep lately and all… " he trailed off.

Jane's face had started to turn pink instead of blue, and she progressed from stiffness to teeth chattering to curling up tighter under the blankets.

Severus waved his wand over her, heating the blankets with a strong warming charm. "She looked like she needs a little extra," Snape commented, brows furrowing.

Hermione nodded in agreement. "Thank you, Severus."

"Who _is_ she?" he asked, but the unsaid was clear. Why did she care when she usually guarded the gateway with a clinical detachment?

"I don't know, but— she seems to be a victim of this, whatever _it_ is," Hermione said. She pressed her hands together as if to pray, and her hands shone as she willed a spell into existence, and it faded soon after. "I messaged Steven, but he may not receive it until later. Apparently, there is some family off summoning demons in a mall somewhere in Arizona. But I know what this is— isn't in any of the lessons. This is new— or something so old that it's buried deep."

Severus nodded. "There are many such things in whichever world you choose to make your home in, be it Muggle, magical, or beyond. This seems… _bigger_ somehow. It made you bring her here instead of just porting her randomly to a hospital. I know you suspect something."

"I'll put the wards up to alert us if there are any changes," Hermione said.

Severus looked up, still hearing the sounds of the impending cataclysm above ground.

"I'll dampen the sound too," she added, giving Snape a weary smile.

"Much appreciated," the wizard replied. "You'd think they were trying to kill each other up there."

Hermione yawned. "I think they are. If they are still moving around in the morning, I'll have to check on them and force-gate them out to somewhere."

"Any idea where? Or do you just throw a dart?" Severus asked.

Hermione smiled. "That's a _great_ idea."

Snape pinched his nose. "Glorious."

Hermione yawned and leaned on him. "You warm enough?"

"Oh don't worry about me, Hermione. Your fuzzy arachnid friends take great pains to keep me comfortable," he said with amusement.

Hermione smiled as a loud crash came from above and the telltale sound of sliding snow. She shook her head. "Sleep well, Severus."

"And you," the black-robed wizard said, tilting his head before sweeping from the room in a flurry of black cloth.

* * *

Hermione walked along the glacier, frowning as parts of the prettier areas were ransacked by the two interloping fighters. She closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of the sea birds and fur seals, happy that the skies had cleared and that her natural residents were seemingly unharmed. Whenever she had to tend the gateway, she dressed in actual robes and a mask as it made a better impression than standing there in her morning wear with her coffee in hand.

Then again, maybe that would make a better impression, she thought.

As her feet touched the frozen snow, she marvelled at how good it felt to have contact with the ice, feeling the water so close. The fact she did not freeze, even in lands such as this, never ceased to amaze her. As a child, it didn't seem to miraculous, but as she grew older the relationship with the snow and ice became a well-guarded secret— not that she was ashamed of it. No, she guarded it because it was something of hers. Something she knew others didn't have. It was her secret, her joy, and her refuge from the stress of life. Cold eventually drove even the cold hearty witch or wizard indoors, but Hermione would sit, bundled in whatever clothes made her seem less normal, privately enjoying the peace of the winter season.

Even if the cold brought on a sense of longing for something she had no idea what could fill it. Nothing and none ever did. Crookshanks had filled a part of it, though she had no idea at the time. The quest for knowledge and magic and later sorcery filled some more, but there was always that gaping chasm that yearned for completion.

As she found two crumpled fighters completely flat on their backs in the snow (some of which had gathered on top of them like a coat of icing on a cake) she had to smile. So focused on beating on each other, they couldn't be bothered to use their energy to leave. Still, they _were_ still here, and the question of why one would bring the woman here for—

Lady Gudrun.

Hermione's brows creased. That was the name from her dreams. The name from the visions from Steven's Eye.

Were these idiots from Ásgarðr?

 _My Lady._

 _A press of lips against the back of her hand—_

 _The gentle tickle of warm breath against her skin._

Hermione shook herself, banishing the thoughts from her mind. She was alone. Whatever thing her soul longed for was long gone. The image in her mind of the blue-skinned, crimson eyed lover was just a dream, nothing more.

She hardened herself to deal with the trespassers, putting the gold and silver mask over her face to protect her identity and her voice from being recognised. She walked over to the fallen combatants. One looked like he was succumbing to the cold at last. His skin was a rather unhealthy light blue, as were his lips. Of all the places to get into a fight with someone—

The other was laying in the snow like he was asleep, his mess of dark hair covering his face.

She hadn't really looked at them earlier in the snowstorm. Short of scanning them for immediate danger and putting a tracer spell on them in case they tried to move off somewhere on Earth, it hadn't been a priority. The weather usually drove invaders away easily as very few wanted a world that froze them to death.

Hermione traced a circle around the larger and unhealthily blue one with her feet and then over-layed her spells over the ground in a magical circle. She used her hands to make an intricate gesture, tying the gate to whatever "home" he had. She stepped back, pressing her hands together in a prayer position and then whipped one hand out, making complex finger motions. The spell surrounded the man's body as the gate formed around him.

Hermione snapped her fingers, and the gate consumed him, throwing him back to whatever home he belonged to with an added Obliviate to where he had been for the past day. She didn't need him to return again, especially after the number he'd done trashing her home.

As the burly blond man disappeared, Hermione sighed and walked over to the other. He, too, would have to be gated back to whence he came from. Yet, as she knelt down and began to draw the circle around the dark-haired on, the wind blew the hair and snow from his face.

Hermione froze. That face—

But that was _impossible_.

Loki.

She reached to touch his hair and then stiffened, her lips pressed firmly together. She stood, waving her hand as the man's body was wrapped in ether and carried along with her as she disappeared into the glacier's depths once more.

* * *

"I would recommend not sitting up quickly," a voice said quietly.

Loki opened his eyes blearily as his mind tried to piece together where he was and how he got there. He stared blearily as a dark figure with pale skin eyed him.

"Where _am_ I?" He paused. "Forgive me, I am Loki. May I ask who you are?"

The figure sighed. "I am Severus. And you are basically in the middle of a frozen nowhere. Earth, if you prefer."

Loki looked around, rubbing his eyes. "I thank you for bringing me somewhere less exposed, as I am quite sure you did not have to."

Severus sniffed. "You needn't thank me. I was not the one who dragged your destructive, snow-covered arse out of the freezing cold."

Loki frowned. "I do not understand, was that not you that told us to leave?"

"Well, had _I_ been out there, I would probably have done the same, but no. It was not I," Severus answered. "I was, however, the one who dressed you as to prevent uncomfortable confrontation."

Loki looked down and realised he was dressed in a loose tunic and soft silk pajama bottoms. "Erm, thank you," he said. His fingers touched the light silk with a little wonder. "I presume I have borrowed your shirt."

Severus arched a brow. "No, the house weavers do that."

"You have people here that do nothing but weave?"

"They are not a people, and they do much more than merely weave."

A clutter of spiders popped in with a tray of food and drink.

" _Oh hai!"_

" _Hallo!"_

" _Oh, you're up!"_

" _Excellent."_

" _Don't neglect your nutrition!"_

The spiders scurried off and then poofed in a small popping sound.

Loki's eyes widened. "Spiders?"

"House weavers."

"I see…"

"They aren't native," Severus said.

" _We go where our home is!"_ one of the little spiders said as it finished arranging the breakfast sausages in a neat line.

"Here?" Loki asked, frowning as he found himself talking to a spider.

" _Where_ she _is,"_ the spider said, disappearing in a poof of ether.

Loki crinkled his eyebrows.

"You'll find a lot of things here that defy preconceived views of normality," Snape said. He shrugged. "Seeing as you are on the mend, I will leave you to your thoughts. Enjoy your breakfast." He got up to leave.

"Wait—" Loki said.

Snape paused, turning back to look upon Loki. "Yes?"

"How badly was I injured?"

Severus tilted his head. "Your ribs were crushed and your jaw was dislocated, but you seem to be otherwise healing. I am, however, not a healer, but I have seen it enough times when dunderheads beat each other up for whatever reason they can justify doing it."

Loki was going to say something, but the wizard had already swept the room in a blur of black fabric.

* * *

Loki winced a little as his muscles complained that his battle with his traitorous brother was still a bit too fresh to treat Seeing him standing there, cradling some mortal chit like her life actually mattered after what he had done to his own brother and his brother's fiancee angered him. More than angered him. What gave his brother such gall that he could beg him for help to save his lover after having killed his brother's wife?

 _Anger._

 _Betrayal._

Yet even so, he found couldn't deal the blow to his brother that he so desperately wanted to.

He had imagined wringing his errant brother's neck over and over, but when it came right down to it— the actual moment of _truth_ — he just couldn't do it.

He saw her face.

 _Her_ face— the horror if he told her that he'd slain his brother for her honour. She would never have wanted that for him.

She was the Goddess of Empathy and Rebirth, and she knew how much he had loved his brother. Deep down, he still did.

As he walked into the next room, it opened into larger, circular room that seemed so achingly familiar. A large fir tree grew in the center, decorated in— the cosmos. There was no other way to describe it. It looked like the view past the walls of Ásgarðr where the Bifröst spanned across space. There were even multi-colored spiders chatting with each other, perched on the boughs of the tree.

A kettle sat on a nearby table, and the inviting scent of the tea caused him a moment of pure pleasure. He realised with some surprise that the walls were carved out of natural rock, as smooth as the marble of Ásgarðr, yet more dark and natural than the shiny and highly polished white and gold of the royal palace.

A shriek came from a nearby room.

" _ **Who are you?! WHERE IS THOR!?**_ "

"Please, you were half frozen to death, and I do not know who you are talking about," a voice answered. "You were dying, and this is a safer place than freezing out on the ice."

"Where is Thor?" a voice screeched.

"I do not know who you speak of. Please describe this Thor."

"He's very tall. Serious muscles. Blond hair. Tall. And um, tall." the voice trailed off, confused. "Where _**is**_ he? He _**swore**_ he'd never leave me!"

"I sent him home."

"You sent him _**HOME?**_ To _**Ásgarðr?**_ You're _**lying!**_ He took me away from there. He took me away so I wouldn't— so I _**couldn't**_ kill anyone else!"

The other voice was silent for a while. "You _killed_ someone?"

Loki concealed himself, eyes going very wide. _What in Helheim had happened?_

* * *

"You _killed_ someone?" Hermione said, her voice quiet.

The lady wrung her hands. "It was an accident! I— I just wanted him to stop insulting me!"

"Who?"

"It— it was Thor's father. Ah— All-Father. Odin," she stammered. "There were children. Oh god, there were children. I didn't mean… it just happened. This stuff poured out of me and— I killed them. I _killed_ them."

"Please, tell me your name," Hermione said, her eyes flickering with fire as her fingers traced a complex calming spell in the air out of sight.

Jane's wide, frightened eyes gained a fraction of calm. "J-Jane. My name is Jane. Foster. I. I'm a doctor of. Of, um… " Jane looked confused for a moment. "Astrophysics."

Hermione paused. It wasn't like it was so farfetched to have an utterly different background and also know about Ásgarðr, seeing as she was once a Muggle, then a witch, and now a sorceress, but Jane didn't seem all that comfortable with the lot she had been thrown in with. Then again— what exactly she'd been thrown into was very much still up for discussion. "Do you remember how you got here?"

Jane shook her head. "We jumped into a portal, some sort of, uh, Bifröst he called it. Then it was _so_ cold. I couldn't— I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe. The cold was so—" Jane looked down. "I must have passed out. I remember Thor carrying me. He said we had to find his brother. That his brother would know how to find Lady Brunhield. Gundar. Gunthar? I—" Jane trailed off. "Grundel? Maybe that was it. He said Ásgarðr couldn't help me, but she could— somehow."

Hermione's eyebrows knit together.

"Where is Thor? Please, I need to see him. I can't— I can't do this without him! He _knows_ what's inside me!"

"I'm sorry, Dr Foster, but as I said, he was sent home," Hermione answered. "You are human. He is not, and he was not given permission to gate in to my home."

"Is it because I'm American and you're British?" Jane started to screech, her emotions all over the board.

"Pardon?"

"Is it because we came here without our passports?"

Hermione blinked. "Dr Foster, it has nothing to do with your being American. This merely has to do with why you, a human and mortal astrophysicist, is doing—"

"Astronomer," Jane interrupted.

Hermione raised a brow. "An astronomer is harbouring a very dangerous sort of magic inside you when you show no sign of actual magical training."

"Training?" Jane asked. "There is training for this— this _**THING?**_ "

Hermione sighed. "I believe there is a form of training for everything," she replied. "It is only a matter of finding the right teacher and being ready for it."

"Look, you don't have to coddle me," Jane said petulantly. "I've been through multiple doctorate degree programs. I know how to learn. I know what learning is."

Hermione sighed. "Dr Foster, I have no doubt you are the top of your field, but what you have now is not quantifiable. If you are a danger to people or beings. If you did kill someone on accident, what makes you think that this Thor could survive it?"

"I would _**never**_ hurt him!"

"So you would hurt children?"

" _ **NO! NEVER!"**_ Jane cried, "I would _**never!**_ "

"But you _did_ ," Hermione said calmly.

Jane looked even more confused, and the strange black and red particles were oozing out of her body. "Stop twisting my words!" Jane demanded, standing up. She lashed out, the particles moving like whips to her desires.

Hermione had up a shield, but the particles moved right through it and bit into Hermione's skin, leaving a trickle of her blood on her cheek.

Jane's body was alive with black and red crawling particles, but then something changed. The vine-like tendrils of Aether hovered in front of Hermione, lightly brushing her cheek. The wound healed, sealing under the Aether's touch. It curled around her body like a curious cat, exploring, slithering, and seemingly caressing her.

Hermione's eyes closed. "Leave her, and I will consider it. Release her."

The Aether shuddered and fluxed in the air, seeming to breathe in and out and then, in a great explosion, it rushed out of Jane's body in a mass, condensing itself into what looked like a shimmering amulet that closed around her neck. The black and red stone pulsed with something more than just magic.

Jane, however, teetered unsteadily on her feet, and Hermione caught her with magic, guiding her back to the bed once more. She ran her hand just above her body, her eyes glowing, and then she closed her eyes, drawing the duvet over Jane's sleeping form. She banished the barriers around the room and sighed, her fingers touching the stone around her neck. It glowed softly, shimmering.

She turned and exited the room, extinguishing a few of the candles to provide some privacy as she went.

* * *

Hermione exited the room to find a silken cocoon hanging from the ceiling in the main room. House weaver spiders were swarming over the unfortunate victim, chittering.

" _No snooping!"_

" _Nope!"_

" _Bad guest behaviour!"_

" _Bad friend behaviour too!"_

" _Person in general behaviour?"_

" _That too!"_

" _He tried to squish Fiddly!"_

" _Rude."_

" _Indeed."_

Hermione eyed the upside-down eyes of her mummy-wrapped guest. "I see you are feeling better to be roaming," she said, utterly deadpan.

Her guest made expressive eyebrows, his mouth gagged with silk, rendering verbal response impossible.

"If you promise to behave yourself, then I will arrange for you to be… unwrapped." Hermione raised an amused eyebrow.

"Or you _could_ simply leave the dunderhead up there, seeing as he couldn't keep his curiosity to himself," Severus said as he walked about nursing a fresh mug of tea.

Hermione sighed, shaking her head. "Release him, please," Hermione said to the spiders.

" _Okay!"_ the arachnids chimed, snipping silk.

 _ **THUD!**_

Loki tumbled to the floor.

" _Ouch."_

" _Maybe we should have put a cushion down first?"_

" _Oops."_

" _Our bad!"_

" _Sorry!"_

Loki groaned, rubbing his aching head. He looked up to see Hermione already sitting at the table, pouring a cup of tea.

"If you manage not to offend him, Severus may have a pain potion for your head, but I'd recommend not doing anything like trying to spy on him."

Loki flinched. He sat down at the table awkwardly, trying to look less the idiot and more the guest.

He looked at the woman, something stirring in his chest, but his mind told him the things he was looking for wasn't there. His heart however, was in conflict. She was close. Somewhere nearby. But where?

"I am Hermione, and I watch this gateway for intruders who like to sneak in under the cover of night where they often terrorise the local populous," Hermione said, pouring him tea. "This is my home."

Loki looked around more closely. "It is not typical of Miðgarðr, this shelter."

Hermione lifted her head. "Typical in what manner, design or the fact we are under a glacier far below the detection of most surface dwellers?"

Loki blinked. "Yes," he said carefully.

Hermione laughed, and Loki shivered suddenly. It was familiar. Oh _so_ familiar. She lifted one of the spiders up in her hand and gave it a tickle and kiss on the head. The spider wriggled and pressed against her cheek before parachuting off to do— whatever it was strangely subarctic cold-tolerant arachnids did.

"I am Loki Odinson," Loki said after sipping the tea. "I am from Ásgarðr."

Hermione's brows furrowed. "Loki is _not_ a common name, nor that it is affiliated with Ásgarðr. What does a royal prince of Ásgarðr desire of the lowly Miðgarðr?"

Loki startled. "You _know_ of Ásgarðr?"

"Some," Hermione said. "I know that in Norse mythology, Loki is the blood-brother of Odin and has red hair, not black. That to save Freya, he had to turn himself into a mare and lure off a giant's stallion, but ended up having the stallion's foal. It is said, Loki tricked the fair goddess Sigyn into thinking he was her true love, and that she married him, but being loyal, could not divorce him and instead tended him as he was bound to the earth with a great serpent dripping venom upon his body. Sigyn, being dutiful, captured the venom in a bowl, but when she turned to empty it, Loki would quake and writhe, and the Earth would tremble with the power of his torment."

Loki's eyebrows twitched, his lip curling. "I find the… creative license that has been taken regarding my life to be truly appalling, Lady Hermione."

"So, which was creative, giving birth to a horse or being tied to a rock under Miðgarðr by your son's entrails?"

Loki's eyes widened at that. "The latter is _definitely_ not true."

"So the first is at least partially true?" Hermione asked, bemused.

Loki looked away. "The giant in question wished a goddess as payment for his work. No one wanted to perform the task, and I was… quite inebriated on the night in question. My elder brother dared me to lure the stallion away to save Ásgarðr." He cleared his throat a bit uncomfortably. "Well, I _did_ save Ásgarðr."

Hermione eyed him. "I'm sure the stories were— epic,"she commented.

"And greatly exaggerated with every telling," Loki said, shrugging.

Hermione smiled a little, the edges of her mouth flicking slightly upward. "I am quite familiar with such things," she said. "Stories get wilder and wilder, and more embellished, then even your own friends cannot remember the truth anymore."

Hermione sighed and gestured to a book laying on the table. "That is the evil of stories told and penance made too late."

Loki looked at the book, his fingers gingerly touching the cover. " _The Boy Who Lied — The True End to the Wizarding World by Harry James Potter_?"

Hermione sighed. "Long ago, we grew up together. There was a war. His parents died, and he survived. People thought him a hero— a boy who survived being hit by a killing curse. But stories are rarely all true, and he was close to a family who treated him like a son, built up his ego, and thought him a hero. There was a battle— a great one— but the end had a great, horrible battle that pitted a young wizard against a older and more vicious foe. He fell, and I— not wishing to lose my best friend— threw myself into the spell, fulling expecting to die to give him the chance to live. When the smoke cleared, the people believe him the hero, and my two best friends eagerly embraced the fame and story, casting me aside for their own careers and, for one, an endless supply of silly females to shag."

"That," Hermione said, "is Harry Potter's attempt to make amends for arranging for me rot in prison while he married the witch who could not be satisfied by one man alone. He did not know this at the time, but, shall we say, a chain of calamities have followed him around since his betrayal— and before you ask, I did _not_ visit this upon him, at least not directly."

Hermione rotated her shoulders. "Steven calls it karma, but the Wizarding World calls it a life debt. A sort of check and balance magic does, regardless of what you think— for the saving of a life with magic."

Loki withdrew his hand from the book as though it had scalded him. "How many people did you save with that act of magic?"

Hermione's eyes flashed. "All of Wizarding Britain."

Loki's eyebrows lifted. "You bend an entire nation to your debt, and you let them incarcerate you?"

Hermione smiled. "I was rescued."

Loki cracked his neck. "I _see_."

"I cannot blame an entire culture for wishing to hold onto their heroes." Hermione said. "They collectively allowed themselves to believe in the lie."

Loki looked up. "You let them believe a _**lie?**_ " Loki's voice trembled with anger.

Hermione's lip curled. "No, they saw the truth right in front of them and believed what they desired to anyway."

Hermione's voice went cold, her posture straightened. "Just as _**you**_ did seconds ago." Fire glistened in her eyes as she stood. "Enjoy your tea, Loki Odinson."

She swept from the room with startling speed, with only the blur of her robes whipping behind her.

Loki stared into the space she had just been, his brain desperately trying to figure out _why_ he felt such a keen sense of pain in his chest.

A ginger-coloured cat jumped down from the hearth and trotted out the room after his mistress, but not before giving him a strong evaluating glare. The cat flipped his tail back and forth as it disappeared down the hall.

* * *

"It's not him," Hermione said, thumping her head back against Halvor's side. "It's not. The person I remember— was a dream. A past. And you can't tell me that however many hundreds to thousands of years it was that he didn't change— that he didn't' find someone else! That I even matter! I'm better off shoving those childish fantasies that someone could possibly be meant for me. Life is not some Disney fairy tale."

Thwack.

Severus sat beside her after smacking upside the head. "Don't be a dunderhead."

Hermione blinked.

"Do you think people, here, there, or anywhere do not change but still love the things they love? Look at you. Look how much you have changed since you were ten. Can you truly tell me you are the same person you were back when you threw yourself in front of that curse? Can you say I haven't?"

"You're still a snarky bastard, Severus."

"Oh, but now I'm a better snarky bastard, my dear," he said.

Hermione huffed, slumping against Halvor.

"As long as there are people, some semblance of sentience, there will be dunderheads— and the human species has more than less," Severus said. "The miracle is that some of us survive the stupid things we do in our youth and become something better, or in my case, worse."

Hermione jabbed Severus with her elbow, but she snuggled into his shoulder, burying her face into robes.

Severus sighed, tolerating her clinginess, but his expression softened. "My best friend changed into something petty and cruel, but my nemesis know-it-all-student, hand-waving chit became my best friend. If you can tell me, honestly, that you have not changed, then by all means, have your little temper tantrum and hold your Occlumency shields up high, but I think, if you tear down that wall you've built around yourself, you'll find the part of yourself you've been searching for in the wrong place."

Hermione muttered into his robes. "When did _you_ get so perceptive?"

"Years of avid practice teaching idiotic children who foolishly believed themselves to be not in need of such things," he replied with a curl of his lip.

Hermione shook her head. "Most children have no experience in how to judge such things."

Snape snorted. "Some more than others. The Weasleys, for example, were all over the board. Some, like Mr Longbottom, seemed doomed from birth."

"Severus!"

He leveled her with a look, his eyebrows raised. "Look me in the eye and tell me that he didn't need considerable help with even the most basic potion and that he would not have failed had you insisted on helping him every time my back was turned."

Hermione flushed.

Snape grunted. "You were _insufferable_. Some people need to blow themselves up in order to realise they are a serious danger to everyone around them."

"He just needed to find what he was good at, and you have to admit his passion for Herbology was great," Hermione advocated.

"Outside of any potions lab or classroom, yes."

Hermione slumped, mumbling something about coleslaw.

Severus grunted. "I happen to like coleslaw myself. You needn't mumble about it."

Hermione looked at Severus and laughed, defeated. "I love you, you know that, right?"

Severus' face softened. "Everyone has knee-jerk reactions, Hermione. Give that one a chance. Had it been a conversation about the ley line dynamics of interstellar portalling, you'd have simply agreed to disagree and left it at that."

Hermione gave him a look. "You did pay attention during our card game with Steven."

"I may not be interested in saving the world from interstellar threats, Hermione, but I don't close my ears, either," he said with a chuckle.

Hermione smiled at him. "Fine, but after we hunt. Halvor is itching for something to eat, and he prefers to eat it fresh and from my hands."

"You realise how odd that is considering most pets and even familiars vacuum up food without caring that its fresh and from your hands, yes?"

Hermione smiled. "Halvor is a hearth-beast. The bond is strengthened through hunts and sharing them, sleeping with them near, and making them a part of your family."

"I just wish he'd stop shedding on my robes," Snape commented rather sourly. "I've collected enough hair to crochet myself a sizeable afghan."

"Warmest sleep you'll have next to being with the real thing," Hermione said with a smile.

Snape rolled his eyes.

"You know you want first pick of a litter, if we end up with a female that meets his qualifications," Hermione teased.

Snape eyed Hermione somewhat suspiciously. "Planning on expanding the underground lair?"

"That's entirely up to Halvor," Hermione said. "But I'd imagine, when he feels it's time, it won't take long for a female to find everything she wants in Halvor."

"Just what the world needs. More profusely shedding furballs," Snape said wryly, just as Halvor thumped into him with his head and pinned down his legs to rub his cheek up and down Snape's prone form. " _ **Nnngh!"**_

Hermione smiled.

Victory.

* * *

"You will tell me, Jötunn, where the Aether is!"

The Jötunn cracked his neck. "Your words are hollow, Malekith," Arvid said. "What insanity would have you believe that I or any of Jötunheimr would have any interest in or inclination to harbour such a thing?"

"I know it is here. I saw the ice, the snow, the glaciers so clearly in my mind. There is no place but Jötunheimr that has such a thing so close that I could taste it," Malekith said. "And I will _**obliterate**_ your entire village and every other village I find until your pathetic people give me the location of the one hosting the Aether!"

"It is not here," Arvid repeated. "You can ask whoever you so choose, but the answer will remain the same. If you have such a bond with such a thing, you would feel it here, yes? Do you?"

Malekith's desperate eyes fogged for a moment. Then his icy eyes opened and he glowered at the taller Jötunn. "You _**lie**_."

He pulled out his blades and pointed them at the Jötunn. "I will carve the truth out of you."

Arvid grasped his spear. "May the Great Frost Mother find you lacking, elf, for your kind destroyed your own home out of a lust for power and live in a godless nation with no room for those better than you."

"You're not better than me, Jötunn," Malekith snapped, his blades clashing against Arvid's spear.

Arvid's face looked upon Malekith's with true pity. "I am not the one who will be your end, elf. There will always be something bigger and more powerful than you."

Malekith sneered. "I will defeat them _**all**_ as I defeat you."

* * *

As Hermione stood on the icy outcrop, Halvor licking the remnants of the seal off her fingertips, all hell set loose, or rather, fell from the skies and landed in the frozen sea with an enormous splash.

She exchanged glances with Halvor, and the big cat looked at her with wide eyes and some stiffening of his neck scruff. "What was that?"

Hermione wasn't quite sure what she had seen, but it looked like someone had cut a giant hole out of a frozen ice cap and then ported it in from some other place.

Her fingers worked rapidly, tracing scanning spells as she tried to ascertain if she was going to need help for whatever had come through. She frowned as her spells told her little other than there were two living things that had fallen through the ice, both were severely injured, and there was a vast difference in size between them.

"Useless spell," Hermione muttered, tracing another one with her fingers. If they were anything short of sub-zero loving creatures, the ice and almost-frozen water would not treat them well, and Hermione realised she had to move quickly to save them— she could figure out if they were in need of banishment to another dimension later.

"Halvor," she said, pulling out a silken cord from her belt and enlarging it. She handed him an elongated bar covered in leather. The great feline clamped it between his jaws. She nodded to him, securing the other end to a clip attached to the belt on her waist and dove into the water with a splash.

Halvor waited, his teeth clenched around the bar, having done this so many times before.

He waited.

He waited.

His whiskers wrinkled in a grimace as he sneezed, getting strands of ropey saliva frozen down the bar's ends.

He waited some more.

Suddenly there was a tug, and he backpedaled, using his substantial weight to heave his mistress and whatever else back up to the surface and the shore. His feet slid, and he dug his claws in, wrenching the rope backwards as he inched his way a little at a time.

Hermione broke the surface, her arm wrapped around a humanoid body as she kept his head above water. There was a larger humanoid fastened to the end of the rope, the cord fastened over his chest and under his arms. She signalled Halvor with her hands as both victims of the fall were on the shore, and the frost sabre dropped the bar and bounded over to her.

Hermione used compressions on the smaller one as she gestured to Halvor, projecting in her mind what she wanted the cat to do. The frost sabre caught her image of him pouncing on the frost mink like a coyote in the snow, and Halvor pounced on the larger giant, using his front legs to compress the Jötunn's chest.

Water spewed from each victim's mouth, and they seemed to be breathing steadily, but their eyes did not open. She patted Halvor to get him to stop pouncing the Jötunn's ribs, whispering a soft apology to no one in particular. His face was swollen and distorted, cut in some places, bruised in others. It reminded Hermione of Harry after being hit with a stinging hex to the face.

Not knowing who these victims or interlopers were, she set to work on building a temporary shelter— far away from her Sanctum and the people she was protecting. She summoned the whale bones from her cache, using them to construct the skeleton of the shelter, cut slices of ice and long-packed snow to form the walls.

Her eyes closed as her magic crafted what her mind remembered.

" _The whale bones are are gift of the great whales, who give us life with theirs. But their bones— they are strong and flexible and a gift of the Great Frost Mother's foresight. The smaller whales give us tools, but the great frost whale is supreme. Their bones form the shelters that withstand the use and the moving of our camps from one season to the next. Their deaths feed our families for many turns of the season, and their bones are treasured above all others. We carve our family's names as well as prayers to our Great Frost Mother upon them and they are passed down from generation to generation. Now, this, Gudrun, is how to set them so they will always flex with the strain of wind and snow. I will teach you the runes we carve into them once you have mastered how they are placed."_

" _Elder, what do we do if there are more bones than Jötunn that need them?"_

" _We cache them in the areas where the spring breakup cannot steal them, marking the place we bury them for those who need them. Sometimes families grow larger or a family needs more bones to make storage. We cannot foresee such things, but we can plan for its possibility."_

" _Elder," Gudrun said, "I am so small. How can I move the jawbones of the great whale by myself?"_

" _Do not worry, little Gudrun," the Elder said kindly. "We shall always be around to assist while you are here, but one day, you may need to make a shelter by yourself and you will not falter because all of this will be right here."_

 _He pointed to her head and poked it playfully._

 _Gudrun beamed "Okay! I'm ready to learn!"_

 _The Jötunn Elder smiled. "Excellent, now let us start with the proper placement of the jawbones."_

Hermione sent out tendrils of magic with her eyes closed, feeling for what she needed and guiding it to where her mind remembered. She and Halvor had done this together many, many times. It was the blessing of having a hearth-beast, whose very size helped with placement of the jawbones in the key places before other, smaller bones could go. In her mind's eye, the bones were larger, and she knew that the Earth whales were not even close to the smallest whale of Jötunheimr.

What she didn't realise was that the Aether started to swirl around her, responding to her need, elongating the bones and reforming them to her mental picture— a buried memory under so many other memories. Halvor held each bone in place, and the spiders poofed in to serve as her extra set of hands or rather legs. They wove the bones together in place with their super strong and flexible silk then poofed into another position and repeated.

She sank the supports into the frozen ground and conjured water to freeze them in place. She layered the ice and snow bricks around the skeletal supports to provide the insulation from the cold. She carefully made holes to serve as the chimney for the hearthfire and then added other vents to protect the occupants from smothering. After constructing the entrance and the tunnel that would serve as the heat trap and keep the inside warm and undrafty, she crafted the hearth, lit the fire, and then made the bedding shelves— a smaller one for the human-sized victim and a much larger one for the Jötunn.

The Aether returned around her neck as a pendant as her eyes opened, and she stared in confusion as the obviously larger shelter stood before her. The tail-end of Halvor disappeared into the shelter as he dragged the two victims into the shelter without her even asking him to.

"Thanks, Crooksie," she said, falling into his older, er, _newer_ name by a strange habit. She shook her head. Regardless of name, Halvor was Halvor— wicked intelligent and fully capable of handling anything he wished to.

She walked into the shelter, smiling as the spiders had already woven a thick door cover to keep the bitter cold from reaching the inside. She walked up the small stairs to the sleeping area and gasped as she discovered that the inside was far more than just a makeshift shelter. The sleeping shelves were lined with a soft layer of waterproof sealskin and the wounded strangers had already been bandaged and dressed in comfier, loose-fitting nightclothes. Tea brewed by the hearth and a cauldron burbled with thick stew.

"Wow," she breathed. Hermione boggled, had she not known that the shelter was new, she would have thought it well lived-in.

She tried to go over in her head what she had done, but her mind refused to tell her where she had gone wrong… or right. Resigning herself to acceptance, she sent a Patronus to Severus so he wouldn't worry and a message to inform Steven of her chain of unexpected guests. She figured he'd get to it when he wasn't off saving the universe from bigger and badder things or trying to fix his relationship with Christine Palmer. Both were epic pursuits according to Severus, who had had to listen to an inebriated Steven's woes late one night when he'd discovered Severus' stash of concentrated ice wine and hadn't realised that it was, in fact, highly concentrated.

Concerned that the two might be mortal enemies as well as unfortunate victims of the same calamity, Hermione wove a few protective wards and intricate barrier spells to keep the two from seeing each other while they healed enough to regain consciousness. For now, she had to make sure nothing showed up on Muggle scans, jamming their devices to record nothing but static, the yelping of fur seals, and the shrieking calls of overenthusiastic sea birds. While she had taken care of such things long ago, checking them was just standard practice.

Halvor was giving her a _look_ , beckoning her over with a fluffed tail and placing his head gently on the unconscious Jötunn's chest. The gesture caused her to jolt, as the massive feline was very picky about bestowing his affections. She approached, placing her hands over their face and sending cooling magic through the Jötunn's facial tissue. Steven had taught her a few spells to help with aches and bruises, but not all were talented in the healing arts to do more. Hermione, however, did, but it required actually touch, and touch—

Touch came with complication such feeling the other creature, person, or being's emotions. While she gave her touch freely to her friends and colleagues she'd known after years of working with them, but touching other sentients could turn out a garbled mess.

Yet— perhaps such things would help her find out what had happened to this unfortunate and displaced Jötunn.

She placed her hand against his inflamed skin, her memories recalling what normal, healthy Jötunn skin _should_ feel like. She closed her eyes and slowly lowered the shields she had so carefully constructed as well as her Occlumency barriers, which had protected her from the pains of her own life.

She hesitated.

Halvor nudged her arm, snuffling her. She placed her head to his, drawing his head close as she took in a deep breath.

The great cat's unconditional love suffused her entire being as she braced herself for the drop in her shields and Occlumency.

The moment she did—

* * *

 _A frost sabre's eyes locked with hers as his pure adoration filled her with love and joy . His little cub paws pinned her down as his head rubbed up against her, marking her as his, his, his._

* * *

 _Halvor attempted to claw and bite his way into their first hunted seal— their first they had ever managed together. His baby teeth were already formidable, but his skill set was not quite there yet. Gudrun, shaky from their first team effort, slashed the seal from jaw to tail, struggling hard to pull the heart from carcass that was considerably bigger than she was._

 _It was bigger than the both of them._

 _How the hell were they going to get that home?_

 _First things first._

 _She sank her arms into the steaming carcass, pulling out the choice pieces of her first kill. Her body trembled with adrenaline, barely able to do the task at hand. She piled the heart, lungs, and viscera in a pile. Her knife was sharp, one of Halvor's first shed fangs, but her attempt to wrench the head off the seal to get it to the offering pile was starting to feel like a war of attrition. Halvor nudged her over and clamped his mouth around the head, using his full weight to sever the head from the spine. The neck gave way, and then the head and Halvor went tumbling backwards with a startled yowl and an undignified thump._

 _She rushed up to him, soothing him with her hands, and he licked the blood off her face and arms, then they both dragged the head over to the offering pile together. She placed it in the middle of the makeshift altar and used the dagger to chip the ice free from the edge._

" _Great Frost Mother," she said. "This is our first kill. Please accept this offering as is your due, for your gaze is ever around us, and nothings lives or dies without your knowing here on Jötunheimr. I am but a lowly hunter who wishes to provide for my hearth-beast and family, who have always been at my side."_

 _Hnnnnnnnngggggghhh!_

 _Gudrun gasped as the great frost whale surfaced, its massive head rising up from the water as it blew air from its blowhole. I stayed, unmoving as if waiting._

 _Gudrun felt her legs grow weak. The great frost whale was huge. She felt like the frost mouse and Halvor. Even the Jötunn were dwarfed by the great frost whale— it was no hard connection to see why any Jötunn of the frozen wastes didn't see them as exactly what they were: the Great Frost Mother's messengers, witnesses, and testers of her faith._

 _She chipped the last of the offering off the ice and let it float towards the whale. The small, seemingly paultry offering bonked into its nose._

 _The whale's jaws opened, exposing lines of huge, impressively sharp teeth. The rush of water carried the tiny raft of ice into its mouth._

 _Rrreeeeah!_

 _Click. Click. Click._

 _Buurreah! Uh-e-ah!_

 _Gudrun gasped as a young frost whale bumped and nudged its mother, diving under and around her. She ran back to the seal carcass and cut off "her" share of the kill, making sure Halvor had his share to eat, dragging it back to the edge. The calf had already bumped his nose over the ice shelf, perhaps knowing what she intended._

 _The calf opened its mouth, showing off his shining baby teeth and pink tongue. She heaved the chunk of seal meat into the calf's expectant mouth as she noticed the calf's dorsal fin was torn and bleeding from some sort of predator. She had no doubt the mother whale had torn the offender to shreds— but the calf had still taken some damage. Nothing bothered a full-grown frost whale— but another frost whale. Even the mighty sharks seemed to know better._

 _Calves, however, if they could catch one exploring away from their mother and the rest of the pod of protective relatives, were fair (if terribly risky) game._

 _Gudrun's heart ached for the injured little whale, and she reached out to it, wanting to ease its pain— pain she could feel._

" _I want to help you," she whispered._

 _The little whale raised its head, and the top of his beak touched her hands._

 _A flood of his pain caused her to crumple, but she could feel energy moving around her hands and moving into the calf's body. The connection, as intense as it was intimate, connected her to the calf, its mother, the rest of the pod that swam deeper under the ice. Then—_

 _She felt it— the connection to She-Who-Watches, the Great Frost Mother, Herself._

 _She felt the goddess guide her hands and her magic into the calf._

 _Tissue knit together. Skin sealed, scarred, and then smoothed out, remodelling itself until there was no trace of the wound._

 _Hrreeeee!_

 _Eeehhahhh!_

 _Zzzzeee! Erraah!_

 _The pod was approaching with excitement, and Gudrun found herself plastered to the little calf's back, hanging onto the dorsal fin for dear life. The larger whales made excited clicks and whistles, nudging the little one as it made happy whistles in return. It surged forward, taking her with him as he weaved and bobbed around his mother and the rest of the pod._

 _Halvor, distressed, tried to follow, pacing back and forth on the edge of the water._

 _The mother whale, possibly amused in her own way, used her head to pry the ice away and supplanted the large frost sabre onto her beak and carried him with as the pod went out to sea, taking their abductees with them. Halvor's fur stood on end as he clung to the back of the whale, his claws doing nothing to help against a creature so much larger than anything he'd ever gone against. He clambered over to the blow hole and dorsal fin— the only place he could get purchase, looking around with wide eyes._

 _Gudrun squealed as the baby whale took her on a ride of her life, bobbing in and out of the waves, in and out of the freezing water, and further than she'd ever been from shore. The larger— oh so much larger— adults whistled, clicked, and sang around them. Other calfs joined in, dipping and playing around the once-injured calf, some seemingly jealous of the new thing their pod-mate had. The nudged and whistled, wanting in on the fun, using their beaks to dislodge the prized passenger and taking her on even faster rides through the water— like a strange game of keep-away._

 _The original calf whistled in indignation, chasing after his pod-mates._

 _The adult whales followed lazily, some breaching, some diving and then breaching._

 _Gudrun boggled at how graceful they were, even as huge as they were. The stories how the Great Frost Mother breached in the ancient seas, forming the land that blessed the people with places to live became so much clearer._

 _Halvor, seemingly realising he wasn't being carried out to sea only to be drowned, was less stressed, his curious glances around making him look like a kitten again._

" _Halvor! Aren't they beautiful!" Gudrun cried. "They're Her children too!" She stood, gaining confidence as she jumped from calf to calf, spinning with her arms outstretched to the sky. "I hear you, Mother!" she said, tears streaming down her face as an intense, almost-painful joy filled her chest. As her arms went upward, the ghost of fiery feathers began to form on her body, yet she did not notice. A golden orange crest grew from her head as plumes swished behind her in a glowing tail. Long, radiant feathers spread out from her back._

 _The whales sang, and she let out a joyous warble of song, so caught up in the joy of the moment and the feel of the great goddess' touch that there was nothing else but the emotion and the song. She could sense the connection between this pod and the others— the far off songs of the distant families and the excited chatter of the smaller whales moving out of the way of the larger ones._

 _Yet, as Gudrun passed them all, she felt as though they all knew no one was hunting this day._

 _Today was for their Goddess— and the Goddess provided peace as well as tests of survival._

 _For now, all stomachs would cease their hunger._

 _For now, all minds would be a peace._

 _For now, all children would walk in safety. All predators would not be hunting._

 _Gudrun found the cold did not sting as much. When she opened her eyes, she could see the life in the very air around her, tinting the skies with streams of different colours. Tears flowed from her eyes, and where they landed, the calf beneath her gained glistening prismatic markings to match the colour of the night sky auras that blessed the nights with vibrant displays; old scars turning to something of beauty in a dangerous world._

 _The calf under— the one who had been through so much— sang to her of the history of the whales, filling her heart with the stories of those who swam in the frozen seas. He was joined by his fellows; and they were joined by the adults. And even Halvor roared into the descending night, his voice joining with the power of the song._

 _By the time they reached the shore again, Gudrun was fast asleep on Halvor's back. The great cat jumped to the solid ice and turned as the pod whistled and sang before returning to the great frozen sea._

 _Gudrun was barely aware as the elders picked her up from Halvor's back and carried her back to her parent's shelter, whispering amongst themselves of her first hunt and something greater. As they carried her into her parent's shelter, the two wide-eyed Asgardians seemed to realise something significant had happened._

 _The elders took out a tin of glowing paste, and with typical Jötunn lack of modesty painted a story in runes across her skin— only as the glowing paste touched her skin, it sank in, rising like the markings of a true Jötunn on her body._

" _She is one of us, Asgardians," one of the wizened elders said, his crimson eyes glowing brightly. "For as long as she walks the lands of Jötunheimr, there will be no war between our peoples."_

" _The Great Frost Mother has sent us a sign," the other said. "If one of Ásgarðr can be accepted by the Great Frost Mother and become a hunter, versed in our ways, then there is hope of understanding between our most different peoples."_

" _She is young—" another said. "But from now on, she will be taught all our ways as befits a Jötunn."_

" _For that is what she is— regardless of her stature and colour of her skin."_

 _The last elder had a small boy clinging to his leg, looking around to see what was going on._

" _Arvid," the elder said. "She is your hearth-sister. You will protect her as your blood."_

 _The smaller Jötunn's eyes widened. "Yes, father."_

 _The elders tucked Gudrun in next to Halvor, and the great cat snuggled into her._

" _She is Marked by the Great Frost Mother," the tallest Elder said, stooped to fit in the "smaller" shelter build for the Asgardians, "and she is now a hunter. That makes her one of us. You may tell your king that you mission has succeeded at last."_

 _The two Asgardians nodded, keeping their heads down respectfully._

 _As the Elders left, they also dropped the bundles of wrapped meat from Gudrun's first hunt by the hearth. As they passed Gudrun, her hand shot out, grasping one elder's finger. "Two bundles for the elders, the largest for the village."_

 _The elder touched her cheek with his finger. "It will be done, child. Sleep. Today, you are a hunter. Tomorrow, you are Jötunn. Sleep in the Great Frost Mother's embrace."_

 _Gudrun's eyes filled with moisture and she nodded and her eyes closed._

* * *

" _She's already a hunter, father, why do I have to teach her the tricks grandfather taught—"_

" _Arvid, you will not disgrace us by refusing to share knowledge with one of our own."_

" _But father, she's not—"_

 _Arvid's father seized him by the belt, yanking him up to see him eye to eye. "You will treat her with the respect she is due, my son. She has had her first hunt before many of us would have dared. She had won the trust of a sacred hearth-beast, and she has ridden the great frost whale— something none of us has dared to even attempt since the time of my grandfather's grandfather. So help me, she is more one of us than that clout Fisk, and she asks for little if anything in return."_

" _But—"_

 _Arvid's father glowered at his son, and it looked as if he was going to say something further when Gudrun dropped a basket off Halvor's back onto the floor. "Elder Jarl, your bundle of sea plants and your share of the ground akra for your drinks."_

 _The girl's face told all. She had heard everything._

 _She thumped Halvor on the side as they exited the tent. She bowed respectfully as she left, and then leapt onto the feline's back. They were gone in seconds._

 _Arvid's father narrowed his eyes as his son. "Pray our Mother will teach you kindly and that the one time Gudrun does not choose to be the kind-hearted creature she is will not be the day you are gravely injured. Get out of my sight, boy."_

* * *

" _No, nonono! Gosta!" Arvid wailed as his beloved hearth-beast collapsed under its own weight. It had taken the brunt of the bear's attack, but the wild beast's horns had savaged his hearth-beast's cheek where it had body blocked the attack to protect Arvid._

 _Gosta groaned, blood staining the frozen ground, trying to get up and protect Arvid._

 _The great bear, normally solitary, was protecting three cubs, and he had not seen her until he had bent down to gather the fizzing spring water his father liked. It had been foolish. He knew it— his father and grandfather had drilled into him to watch for bears with cubs at this time of season._

 _Arvid knew he had done wrong, but he had been desperate to regain his father's favour after their fight. Still, he didn't want to admit he was wrong, either. The Asgardians had been underfoot since long before he was born, but he heard so many of the old stories. He know they had killed Jötunn— if not them, those like them. And he? Arvid? He had been born out on the frozen wastes like generations before him. Gudrun's parents couldn't even withstand the ice and snow without multiple layers of heavy clothing and their heating rocks. Who cared if their child could walk the ice floes like a Jötunn when she would remain tiny while everyone that mattered would be tall? Even the frost sabre was already taller than her._

 _Who cared if her frost sabre hunted something and claimed it for her own? That didn't make her a proper hunter. It made her a mooch like Fisk. Who cared if she fell in the water trying to give her offering to the whales and they rescued her? She was no blessed of the Great Frost Mother._

 _She was just lucky to be alive._

 _Gosta bellowed in agony, and Arvid realised nothing mattered but his injured hearth-beast. What would he tell his father coming home empty handed and with news of their dead hearth-beast that had been with them since before Arvid had been born?_

 _Arvid shook his beast's side. "Gosta! You have to get up! You have to go home!"_

 _Gosta, however, was fully focused on protecting Arvid. He strained, growled, and lurched, bones shifting, tendons popping, and groans of pain mixed with the determination of the hearth-beast to protect its family by any means necessary._

 _Arvid tried to stop Gosta, but Gosta pushed him away, flinging him behind him and into the snow. Arvid cried as he tried to unbury himself, but Gosta lunged at the huge bear again, earning himself a clawed swat across the face. Arvid, desperate, threw ice chunks at the attacking bear._

 _The bear, struck hard upside the head, whirled in fury, eyes focused on him again. She roared, shoving her cubs behind her as she barreled after Arvid. Gosta was no small beast, but he was no frost beast or even a frost sabre. He was one of the small and sturdy loyal canines that roamed the hilly areas far from the sea. 'Small' was relative, but the fact remained that Gosta was not the biggest defender out there. He was more of a pack animal, and the rest of his family was back home—_

 _Back home, eagerly waiting the return of their mate and dad._

 _Roawwwwwwwrrrrrrrrr!_

 _A huge white blur shot across the snow and slammed into the charging bear. Paws swatted, claws slashed, and fangs sank in as the bear was tumbled across the snow. Halvor snarled viciously, his teeth flashing as his claws slashed, and he pistoned his legs up and then raked them down the angry bear's thick hide, wrestling the she-bear down with a flurry of slashes, swats and kicks._

 _Gosta, however, did not retreat as Arvid begged. He limped toward battle, determined to throw himself back into the fray— the fatal flaw of all well-bonded hearth-beasts. Their life meant nothing without their family, and they would live and die protecting their most treasured one. It was in that moment, Arvid understood why Gudrun's bond with Halvor was so tight. While there was nothing Halvor wouldn't do for Gudrun; Gudrun would stop at nothing to protect Halvor. His mother's bond with the the other hearth beasts was nigh unbreakable. Only Gosta seemed more apt to protect him than the rest of his family. Gosta had been born around the same time as Arvid, and the bitch had almost instantly nudged Gosta to Arvid as he slept._

 _And this was how he had repaid him for his loyalty._

" _Gosta, no!" Arvid pleaded. His heart breaking as he realised that his actions would bring about the loyal creature's end. Gosta, however, saw only the danger to his best friend, and he continued to head towards danger instead of away._

 _Arvid yelled, trying to pull himself out of the snow and ice that had pinned him down. Tears streamed down his face. "Gosta! Come away!"_

 _Gosta snapped his jaws around the she-bears' neck. The great bear slammed its weight down over and over, smashing Gosta into the ice. Again. Again, and again._

 _Yip!_

 _Gosta went tumbling away as Halvor's paw smacked the bear's head soundly, foam flying in all directions._

 _The bear cubs were running in to help, confused and tormented by their mother's cries. The tried to take bites out of Halvor, and Halvor kicked one off his flank. The she-bear, spurred on by the danger of her cubs even more than before, broke her head free of Halvor's teeth and savaged Halvor's scruff, going for the throat._

 _Had Halvor been full grown, perhaps things would have ended easily, but now both sides were bleeding and fighting for their lives. Arvid had broken free, albeit limping as he dragged one leg behind him like a dead weight, and crawled to Gosta's side, crying over his still, bloody body._

 _ **SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!**_

 _Blue and golden-white fire streaked in from seemingly everywhere as an explosion of feathers and flames heralded the arrival of—_

 _Arvid saw the great wings of a giant bird spread out like the carrion birds of the south sunning themselves in the morning rise of the sun. The bird dive bombed and hit the ground, rising from the flames as the whale breached from the water. Flamed feathers dripped in a fiery rain as a female— Gudrun— rose up from the ground._

" _Enough. Peace."_

 _Her hand reached out and touched Halvor's head, and the great cat released his hold on the she-bear._

 _The she-bear immediately snapped on Gudrun's arm, savagely crunching her bones._

 _But Gudrun's arm was more than mere flesh and bone. It was also fire and feathers._

 _Suddenly, the mother bear's jaws released, her head bowed low.. The fury in her eyes seemed to fade even as the wrinkles on her muzzle loosened and smoothed. She licked Gudrun's bloody arm as the skin knit together. Gundrun's hand caressed the bear's head, her tiny form dwarfed by the bears hulking mass, round like a barrel where Halvor was not. Her energy flowed into the mother bear, and the bear's wounds healed and disappeared. Halvor touched her other hand, pressing up into it, and nuzzling her. Gudrun's expression softened, her eyes closing, and the bridge of magic seemed to arc between the three of them._

 _When Gudrun turned, her eyes were like fire, flames leaking from the corners of her eyes. The bear's cubs ran up to their mother, no longer attacking Gosta. Gudrun walked up to Gosta, her expression sad._

 _Arvid wept, crying on the beast's side, begging the creature to get up again— anything, anything at all but lie there so terribly still and unmoving even in the slightest._

 _Gudrun knelt beside the loyal canine, her hand soothing the beast's head. Then she stood, walking away._

" _Whu-what? Why are you leaving!_ _**WHY ARE YOU NOT HELPING HIM!"**_

 _Gudrun turned back. "One life for a prayer, Arvid. Do you forget our Mother-Who-Watches? To heal requires energy— to save a life requires our Mother's regard." Gudrun turned leaning heavily on Halvor, and the great cat knelt for her to mount. The bear, cubs in attendance, nudged her up and over Halvor so she could get in position, making a soft lowing noise._

 _Gudrun, weary but determined, touched both Halvor and the mother bear, seemingly gaining strength from the contact. She then pressed her leg against Halvor's side and they were off into the whiteness of the storm outside the burbling spring's shelter from the frozen wastes._

* * *

 _It was an hour or so more when Gudrun returned with Halvor, and, strangely. the mother bear and the cubs as well. Arvid could barely recognise her. She was covered in blood, and her clothes were torn and barely hanging on. While it was no big deal for a Jötunn, Arvid knew the Asgardians did prefer to wear more, not less— then again, Jötunn children tended to wear more due to not having the stamina of adults, and Arvid was no exception. He'd managed to scrape together enough dried material and start a fire. The hot springs was warm enough that it wasn't frigid, but Gosta was struggling to breathe—_

 _He'd spent that hour bitterly cursing Gudrun and all she stood for, having seen her heal the very animal that savaged his best friend before Gosta. Gosta who was dying after trying to save him. Hearth beasts were so much more important than the wild beasts of the frozen wastes!_

 _Then, as he started to remember the terrified cries of the mother bear's cubs as their mother was in pain, he started to question his own behaviour and his thoughts. He had been the one not to back down with the bear reared up to defend her cubs. He had been the one too concerned about his skins of precious water to give way for the bears to drink and retreat._

 _His fault._

 _All his fault._

 _Gudrun had a very large seal dragging behind Halvor and— was the bear actually helping? How?_

 _She had them pull the carcass up to the fire and unhitched them. She paused to catch her breath, arms shaking. She squared her shoulders, digging her fang-dagger into the seals' hide and slit it from jaw to tail. She fished out the heart, lungs, and liver, placing them in a neat pile. She rested for a few minutes and then hacked away to remove the head, putting it next to the pile of offerings before drawing a circle around it. A flare of her magic lit a fire that ringed the offering._

" _Great Frost Mother," she said, winded. "We beg for your precious gaze. Brave Gosta has fallen in defence of his beloved Arvid, keeping the Covenant, which you have gifted us from the beginning of time. I pray you, gift us with the touch of your divine warmth to reward this one for his loyal service. Allow me to be the conduit for your judgement— whether it be to be at your side or to remain with us and the ones he has loved so dearly."_

 _The circle flared to life, consuming the offering in a flash of blue fire._

 _Gudrun placed her hands on Gosta's body, and a golden glow spread from her hands all over Gosta's body. The beast inhaled deeply, legs moving, and his tongue shot out to lick Arvid. Arvid cried out in joy, wrapping his arms around the beast's neck, hugging him tight._

 _Gudrun cut a large part of the carcass into two unequal pieces. She gave the largest to the she-bear, and the bear dragged it off to allow her cubs to struggle over it. She gave the smaller, but no less large piece to Halvor, smiling as the great cat began to clean it from the bones. She then cut a large serving for Gosta, patting him with soothing noises. She then carved the remaining portions into bundles, wrapping them with the seal's skin to keep it protected, tiredly placing two portions over the fire to cook._

" _Food for you to maintain your strength," she said to Arvid, her breaths heavy and eyes almost closed._

 _She crawled over to Halvor's side and cuddled with him, her body well beyond weary. She crumpled against him, eyes closing immediately as her exhaustion claimed her._

 _Arvid paid so much attention to watching the bundles by the fire cook, he barely saw anything else. His stomach growled hungrily, and the hunger was maddening. By the time the meat smelled good, he was unable to help himself as he tore into the parcel of meat and devoured it like a hungry frost weasel. As the hunger pangs eased, only just enough that he could see straight again, only then did he realise he'd devoured both bundles of meat in his hunger-driven madness. He looked over to Gudrun and felt the twinge of guilt._

Let the hunter hunt some more, _his traitorous mind told him._ If she's so special.

But, she saved Gosta! _He protested, arguing with himself._

 _Moving over to the bundles of meat she had already wrapped and set aside for her family and the elders, he dug into one, hastily putting it by the fire so it could cook for her, hoping she wouldn't wake before it was cooked and have her realise his sin. Maybe, he could blame it on the bears—_

 _He suddenly realised the bears had left. When had that happened?_

 _Had they really just taken the food, drank deeply from the fizzing waters, and left? Had everything they had gone through been because the bears had just wanted a drink?_

 _Arvid frowned. His grandfather had told so many stories of great hunts, and he knew them all by heart, much like all the other Jötunn children did, but mere stories didn't make the hunter. Arvid knew the words, the tellings, and even how the biggest, fattest and best seals lay below the ice, out of sight, but he was not a hunter— yet._

 _She was. young. small in stature, like a Jötunn child— but a hunter nonetheless. While she was not yet experienced in the ways of the hunter, she was certainly well-versed in the ways of She-Who-Watches._

 _And nothing… nothing in Jötunheimr ever escaped the gaze of She-Who-Watches. She was the Great Frost Mother, after all. All the hunting knowledge of Jötunheimr meant nothing if She didn't have your back— something he had just forgotten in the heat of his panic._

 _Why had she not gotten up to eat yet?_

 _He eyed Halvor, wondering if the cat would see through him and find something less than worthy—He swallowed hard and reached over to shake Gudrun._

" _Gudrun, come, the food is ready," he said. "Gudrun?"_

 _He felt her skin, but became confused, unsure as to what was normal body temperature for Asgardians. She felt— normal for a Jötunn. Was that— normal?_

 _He shook her. "Gudrun!"_

 _Nothing. Halvor didn't seem concerned, but why?_

 _He heard the thumps of spears and feet approaching— the distinctive sounds hunters made when they were not hunting. Much like the curled tail of the non-hunting frost sabre, it signalled where they were to not surprise something larger and more apt to kill first and ask questions later._

" _Arvid!"_

 _He heard his father's voice._

" _Here!" he yelled back after weighing the options of not being caught getting in trouble at the fizzing springs._

 _They approached, the thumping of the feet coming slowly but steadily._

 _Arvid heard their feet crunching in the new snows outside the cave and the deep low of bear._

 _A bear?_

" _Thank you bear-mother," a female voice said. "Please, accept this offering in thanks for your guidance."_

 _Arvid paled as he realised the Great Frost Mother's priestess was there._

" _Arvid!" his father's voice boomed._

" _Here, father," Arvid called. He watched the glow of the whale oil lamp globes that were treasured for their ability to burn brightly even when wet. His grandfather had always had him check that every hunter's pack had the basic supplies: emergency rations, dry wicks, a lamp with whale oil, a compact tinderbox and stricker, a sparking stone, a collapsible emergency shelter and blankets. There were other things such as sharpening stones, a shatterproof tusk-knife, awls, sinew, and various other essential tools that were not so important until you really needed them._

" _Just because the Great Frost Mother gifts us resistance to the cold does not mean we cannot be prepared for the unexpected dunk in the frozen seas, a tusk to the knee, or some wound. You cannot carry a healer with you at all times, so carry bandages, know how to make a splint, and be prepared for the randomness. If you survive long enough to have a mate and blessed enough to have a child, then they will be counting on you to both bring home food and not get yourself killed. That is what you need to remember. It is always more than just you."_

 _Arvid flushed. That was exactly what he had done—believe that what he needed to do was more important. But he was not a hunter! He was not supposed to be a responsible adult!_

 _But you want to be treated like one, his traitorous thoughts came._

 _It's not the same!_

 _Arvid was about to blurt something to his father when the adults gathered around. The priestess placed her hand on Gudrun's forehead and then felt her hands. His father scanned the area, looking at the fire, the bundles of meat, and finally his son._

" _Elder Jarl, she is drained from channeling the Goddess' power. So young— she was not ready," the priestess said. "We must get her home where she can recover in safety. While no beast on the wastes would dare harm her, there are other dangers this close to_ _Útgarða-Loki's domain, where the city Jötunn do not respect She-Who-Watches."_

 _Arvid watched his father's brow crease, and then he nodded to the other adults, who quickly gathered Gudrun up in sealskin as others connected a travois to Halvor. His father knelt and checked on Gosta, who was still recovering from his ordeal._

" _Arvid," his father said, eyes narrowing. "What happened?"_

 _Arvid looked down, biting his lip as he looked over to where the priestess was making sure Gudrun was bundled well for travel. "I wanted to get fizzy water to apologize for the argument, but the bear was here, and it came up while I was filling the skins. I had so many skins. I wanted to impress you! I couldn't let them go— and the bear had cubs and— I didn't back down. I didn't see the cubs until it was too late. She charged and— I tried to stumble back but— but—" Avid burst into tears. "Gosta attacked. He thought I was in danger. He couldn't stop. He wouldn't stop! I couldn't stop him, father, I couldn't—"_

 _His father wrapped him in a hug. "Boy, you need not try to impress me with gifts when we have words. Simply show me the respect that you think on what I have taught you. Gudrun was training with Priestess Helka when they had a vision of your danger. Before Helka could stop her, Gudrun and Halvor were away. We waited for word when the she-bear came, waiting outside the village but not coming in. The priestess knew it had come to lead us to you."_

" _Y— you knew?" Arvid said, sniffling._

" _Boy, put out the fire and pack your supplies. We need to return home and get Gudrun to her parents, who worry themselves sick over her safety. While they believe She-Who-Watches is real to us, they do not have the faith as we do— as Gudrun does. We must get her home and you to your mother, who also frets over your bones."_

 _Arvid paled, having forgotten his mother for the more immediate wrath of his father. "Is she angry with me?"_

" _Angrier than a frost sabre dunked in the ocean," his father said, sighing. "But she will be less so when she realises you are not dead or dying and that Gosta is not as well."_

 _Arvid gulped. "She will make me dry fish and pound sea pods for a month."_

" _Be glad you are alive to do it," his father said. "Be thankful for what you have. Now get packed and lets go."_

 _Arvid watched them carry Gudrun away with Halvor pulling the hunting travois behind him, loaded into a mountain of bundled meat and supplies._

" _Yes, father," Arvid said, setting to work._

* * *

 _Gudrun did not remember much when she woke to Halvor grooming her head. Her parents, however, rushed over and gave her such a hug that she wondered what had gone on when she was sleeping._

" _Wha— what happened?" Gudrun asked, baffled._

" _You've been sleeping for over a week," her mother fussed, petting her hair like she was a young child, her face all wrinkled with concern._

 _Her father put a hand on his wife's shoulder. "I told you," he admonished. "It was like the Odinsleep. She had to recover after using so much energy to save Gosta."_

 _Gudrun blinked, trying to clear her head. "Gosta? Is he okay? Is Arvid all right?"_

" _He has hardly left here since you came back," her mother said, fussing all over her again. She pointed her chin at a crumpled, curled up Arvid, who was sleeping in one of her parents' favourite chairs. "He's brought us fresh fish every day and several different dishes from his mother. Oh, my dear, we were so worried!"_

 _Gudrun blinked, still very groggy and confused. "I need to sit in the snow." She started to sit up, slightly dizzy._

" _Honey, no," her mom protested. "It's freezing out there."_

" _Mother, the cold really doesn't bother me," she insisted. "I need the cold— to remind me what happened. It remembers when I cannot."_

 _Gudrun's mother looked even more concerned, but her father put a hand on her shoulder. "Let her find the snow, my Lady wife. She was born in the snow."_

" _She is our daughter!" his wife protested._

 _He smiled. "She is the snow's daughter as much as ours, my love. We have shared her from the beginning."_

 _Gudrun had already crawled onto Halvor's back, and the cat responded to her signals without a sound being made, slinking out in the cold that chilled to the bone— yet there on the hook was the coat, scarves, and gloves that had been made for her._

 _They remained on the hook, unused and unmourned, save the few times she went diving and needed to get the edge off. Even then it was more a luxury than a need. Her parents had to bundle up safely to leave the shelter, lest the cold get them so addle-brained that they walked right into danger._

 _Meanwhile, Gudrun's father pulled a blanket over the sleeping Arvid, allowing him the rare moment of blissful sleep._

* * *

" _Hold the line, Gudrun!"_

" _I am!"_

" _Hold it tighter!"_

 _Arvid slid across the ice, his spear making a harsh scrape across the frozen floe ice. He leapt into the air and used his entire weight to pierce the ice with his spear, which made a loud crack as it shattered._

 _Blood stained the water as the seal under the ice flopped and struggled._

 _Arvid dove in, using his own body mass to drive the spear into the large seal. A thick cord attached to a ring on the end of Arvid's spear, and the line went taught as a loud sound signalled the last mighty thrust striking home._

 _Gudrun wrapped the cord around the grounding ring she had plunged into the frozen ice and used her weight to pull, and then she waited for—_

 _A floating bobber came up._

" _Halvor, pull!" Gudrun yelled, and the cat was already on the move before she had actually said anything. He wrapped his mouth around the bobber and pulled the second line. With Gudrun keeping the carcass from floating down further, Halvor pulled the seal up, and Arvid came to the surface, pulling himself onto the shelf ice and heaving to help the seal carcass further from the water, lest the hunting sharks claim more than they offered in thanks for the hunt._

" _Look out!" Gudrun warned, and Arvid hurried further in as the ice cracked under the weight of the seal, who was still larger than all three of them combined._

 _The fattest seals lurk below the ice, Arvid had always said. It was wisdom from the the hunters of old. They had not been telling tall tales. Her first seals had always been the surface ones, smaller and easier to catch napping on the top. They had been large, as all the seals were, but the ones below— oh, but what a boon to the entire encampment. The rich meat satisfied in small portions, and one fattened seal could supply food for a months, even when feeding multiple families. Even when giving Halvor and the other beasts their portions, no one ever went hungry._

 _Hunting, they had learned together, was taken up in shifts— at least for the seals, but it was not uncommon to hunt more to pad the caches for winter and provide for a family, especially if a female was expecting. Gudrun and Arvid had quickly become a well-oiled team, especially with Halvor to help, and they had adapted their hunting to allow the sabre to assist as best as he was able._

 _As Arvid stumbled further inland, they pulled the seal with them, and finally collapsed together on their backs, grunting and laughing in between heavy breaths. Arvid was already showing greater stature than Gudrun— the genetic stamp of his people rising up to be known, but it had hardly mattered anymore. The days when Arvid thought his hearth-sister lesser a being because of not being born Jötunn had long since ended. If anything, he'd learned his sister was fierce like the frost mink, swift, agile and deadly. Size, he realised, meant nothing. The Jötunn had made the mistake of underestimating the Asgardians long ago, but Gudrun was rewriting the rules even more than her parents in how quickly she adapted to their harsh environment, culture, and customs._

 _Even if she did have that tenacious Asgardian accent, fluent as she was, she still sounded Asgardian._

 _The day he woke from his vigil to find Gudrun out on the snows, communing with the snows as many Jötunn did, their lives had been side-by-side. The only one that constantly picked on her was Fisk, and that was only when it was a battle of sheer physical strength, not talent or wits. Even Fisk did not bother her too much due to one very large obstacle: Halvor. To the troublesome giant's eternal shame, he had discovered that feeding Halvor whale blubber (fully intending to distract him so he could get close to Gudrun) gave the great feline extremely horrible flatulence, and he showed his appreciation for the tasty snacks by sitting on him and passing gas ripe enough to melt the ice floes, the like of which could only be witnessed during the spring running._

 _Fortunately, Halvor was so traumatised by being forced to sleep outside that night instead of next to Gudrun, he never accepted whale blubber from anyone ever again._

 _Fisk, on the other hand, was forced to sleep far away from the family that night until the horrible odor finally faded. It had lasted a good month, with his family leaving parcels of food outside his hut many, many paces outside the encampment's main cluster._

 _Arvid nudged Gudrun with his elbow. "Enough to feed the camp for good month, I think," he said with a chuckle._

 _Gudrun smiled as she sat up. "Buggi will be happy. His mate is eating for two."_

 _Arvid laughed. "Is that why you volunteered us for hunting off our cycle?"_

 _Gudrun grinned. "We hunt anyway. We might as well ease the burden as they adjust." She frowned. "You're hurt," she said, touching his side with her hand._

" _It's noth—_ _ **AH!**_ _That_ _ **hurt!"**_

" _Nothing doesn't hurt like that, hearth-brother," she muttered as her hand glowed gold along with her eyes. The wound healed quickly but left a deep purple scar. "I know you like to show your scars off to the females," she said with a shake of her head. "I left you a nice purple one."_

 _Arvid grunted. "I wouldn't have to show off my scars to other females if you would just accept that we are a good team."_

 _Gudrun huffed. "We are a good team, but we are not meant to be mates."_

" _You carried my hunting knife," he purred._

" _ **Agggh! Males!"**_ _she yelled, shoving him away. "No one told me about that because everyone supposedly knows about that, but_ _ **I**_ _didn't know about that. Why is it that you, my hearth-brother, left that really big lesson out?"_

 _Arvid grinned from ear-to-ear. "Slipped my mind."_

" _Right," she said, snorting. "Save me from your clandestine male secrets."_

 _Arvid pouted, but he helped her butcher the carcass and carefully preserve the skin. Halvor, as usually, got the largest rib of meat to chew on as they did so, and the Great Frost Mother got a few of the choice parts they alternated each hunt. She-Who-Watches would never keep the same parts away from her faithful nor would she steal the precious skins that were used for so many things, so the hunters rotated what they offered to her as thanks for her hand of guidance. The only exception was the very first hunt and offerings made asking for a boon. Then, they would leave the heart, lungs, and head of the kill— the heart to ask for the Her compassion, the lungs to symbolise life in a breath, and the head to embody reverence for the cycle and how every life was precious._

 _By the time they had loaded it all on the travois behind Halvor, the cat had licked his rib clean of flesh, and carried it in his mouth. He'd very likely carry it all the way back to the camp until someone asked him to relinquish it, and that rib would become a prized tool. They pushed the offering to She-Who-Watches out to the sea, bowing their heads in prayer and thanks, then started to head back to camp, wondering if it would be the great whale that took the offering or one of the smaller predators._

 _As the three of them walked back to camp together, the harshness of the wastes seemed less as the bond between them only grew stronger._

* * *

"Sister!" the Jötunn rose up from the sleeping shelf and squished Hermione to him. He held her as one would something precious and small, so very careful but with no less enthusiasm.

The moment his skin touched hers, Hermione had a jolt of connection so intense it was was jarring. Memories surged and shared as she was filled with an undeniable sense of kinship.

"You live! I told them you were not lost to us!" he touched her cheek with wonder. The words he said were strange to her at first, but they came back to her as if she were remembering a song.

Hermione, a bit overwhelmed by the intense emotion and sharing, caught her breath as the rest of her body adjusted to the strength of the deep kinship she felt for this once-stranger. Now solidified, it refused to be denied, and her Occlumency failed her. She burst into tears, sobbing as she hugged her hearth-brother back.

"When Halvor did not return, I knew he had found your trail," Arvid explained. "For he was too wily for death, and only you could have kept him from returning home for so long."

"Why are you here?" Hermione asked, her hands automatically touching his arm and tracing the markings on his skin. Between mates, she remembered, it was a very different sort of thing, but between family it was a reassuring gesture that reinforced family bonds. She knew it was serious when he didn't joke about it— he never could resist doing so on a good day.

"Malekith of Svartalfheim wishes to use a powerful weapon known as the Aether to bring eternal darkness to all the Realms, my sister," Arvid said. "He wished to bend Jötunheimr to his will to find it, and for some reason unknown to me, he believed the Jötunn knew where it was. King Laufey suspects that Utgarda-Loki may harbour it in his great city beyond the snows, and went to parlay, but he has not returned— Well, no, rather he had not returned before Malekith and I… had a discussion."

"Laufey—" Hermione said, frowning. "I do not remember him."

Arvid's expression softened. "You have been so long away, my sister, parted from us so long the memories have been buried deep within. Have you missed me as I have missed you?"

Hermione, so full of emotion she hadn't been able to face since the end of the Wizarding War and her incarceration wept, her body shaking as years of pent up emotion flooded through her system. "Brother," she whispered, clinging to him, eyes tightly closed. Golden runes began to return to her skin as the surface began to rise into patterned texture.

Arvid tenderly ran his hands up and down her back and arms with his one hand. "Hauk will be happy to meet his aunt at last," he said warmly.

"I—" Hermione sniffled. "I'm an aunt?"

Arvid laughed, thumping her on the back. "Of course you are. Unless you prefer to be his uncle, but I would have to explain that somehow diff- _ **MPPHGH!"**_

Hermione sealed his lips together with both hands as she glowered at him.

Arvid grinned, despite himself. "Mmmphou mhave a mneice moo," he mumbled between pursed lips.

Hermione's eyes went wide as she dropped her hands.

"Her name is Livunn." Arvid grinned as Hermione burst into tears again, hugging him tightly. "They both have tried to reach our heights of hunting fame at an early age, but alas, neither of them quite have your prowess with beast-speak or my ability to hunt underwater, but they _are_ still young."

Hermione wiped her face and gave Arvid a meaningful look just before Halvor pounced on the Jötunn and slammed him down, sitting down on his pelvis as he rubbed his head all over Arvid's face. Even now, or perhaps especially, the frost sabre was more than massive enough to make everything around him look small by comparison.

Hermione sat on the floor where she had been unceremoniously dumped on her bum, laughing. "Justice."

Halvor, busy with remarking his scent all over Arvid, rolled onto his back and snuffled, causing the Jötunn to groan in mock pain as being rollered by the frost sabre's "best" intentions.

Hermione was almost to her feet when an arm went around her neck and yanked her up, jerking her upright and backwards on a lean as the arm cut off her air.

"Midgardian," a voice hissed. "Your pathetic baby spells cannot contain _me_."

" _ **Malekith!"**_ Arvid yelled, struggling to get up. Halvor scrambled at the same time, and had the situation been less grave it could have been comical.

Hermione, looking to Arvid and then to Halvor, closed her eyes and her hands dropped from where she had been trying to pry the arm away from her neck. She made gestures with her fingers as a globe formed around them both. She threw her hands down together, and the globe flung itself through a pocket of space and time to dump them on a frozen landscape.

As their bodies hit the ground, Hermione slipped under Malekith's grasp and she tumbled down and over, pulling on the many martial lessons Steven and the other Masters had taught her. Her leg swept Malekith's out from under him in time for her to roll away, stand, and block the blast of dark magic that seemed to erupt from Malekith's very core.

The spell deflected off her shields, but shattered the bubble of Mirror Dimension, dumping them back in the more familiar ice and snow they had left.

Back and forth, they fought, one spell or one physical move to another counter. Beams of magic met invisible force. Ice cracked, bergs split off, and parts of the glacier crashed into the sea. While she did not carry any weapons, she conjured them as she needed to block Malekith's flashing swords and daggers, which he used often— channeling his dark magic into each slash and thrust.

He threw a ball at her, and she blocked it with a large chunk of ice, tumbling out of the way with a painful cry, but the area she was in was sucked into a vortex and disappeared. Hermione winced painfully, clutching her side where one of the elf's weapons had sliced across her ribs. She panted with exertion, and she knew she was running on pure adrenaline. Her opponent was in a fervor, seemingly blinded to one purpose.

They were at it again, swords and daggers versus magic and agility, Hermione staying just ahead, but only just barely. She thanked her Masters for all the martial training, even as she knew Malekith was better. He was older, stronger, and more focused in the art of war, and while she was studying _him_ ; he was studying _her_.

It was a war of attrition, and she knew was going to lose in the end. Somehow Malekith knew both weapons, war, and magic, and the combination was deadly effective. Part of Hermione was curious as to what could have created such a fierce combination when all the stories of elves in her childhood were peaceful, nature-loving beings. Tolkien elves aside, her father had always read about they lived in forests and tended the trees and animals. Perhaps that was why she had always found the "slavery" of house-elves to be so painfully abhorrent. Nothing, it seemed, was truly like the old stories.

Malekith was _**none**_ of these things.

Suddenly, Halvor came bounding in, and he launched himself at Malekith from the side, his fangs scraping down the side of the elf's left side of his face, leaving a gouge yet missing the fatal bite. Malekith's sword slashed up as his dagger moved from another direction.

"No!" Hermione yelled as the dagger sliced across Halvor's chest, leaving an angry wound.

Halvor roared in pain and tumbled to the ground.

Hermione screamed on hearing Halvor's cry of pain, remembering in that moment the look of his beautiful eyes as he looked at her as a young cub— the eyes that trusted her and loved her from that very first day his mother allowed him and all his brothers and sisters to inspect her. The feel of his warmth next to her as she slept, the screaming fiasco as "Crookshanks" clawed up Ronald Weasley's Quidditch uniform and then shed all over his school robes right after the house-elves returned them— all of it came back at once.

All of it was Halvor.

Just as _she_ was Gudrun.

Her eyes glowed, consumed by fire. Feathers of flame sprouted over every part of her body as she let out a fierce scream, shaped her fingers together in an intricate formation as she touched her index and thumbs together in a locking diagram and blasted Malekith straight to the chest. The elf blew backwards, tumbling arse over teakettle before slamming hard into an ice-covered rock.

Hermione panted, utterly exhausted, stumble-staggering over to where Malekith was, barely coherent enough to send out a message to Steven, and even less so to send a full-bodied Patronus to Severus. When she got to where Malekith had fallen, the frost-weavers had wrapped him up from head to toe in a cocoon of spider silk. They moved quickly, binding him over and over, and then disappeared in a puff of ether.

One spider, checking the silken bonds carefully, tugged on the lines of silk ever so fastidiously, making sure they were tight—

Just as Malekith's hand, a hidden arm blade having slashed through the wrap, shot out and crushed the spider's plump body with his gnarled hand and squeezed.

The spider made a sad, piteous wheeze, too surprised to retaliate or even port himself away. His legs wriggled, slowing, his fangs trapped just far enough away that biting wasn't an option.

 _Sorry_ , it said, it's voice so quiet. _Tried._

"You will give me the Aether," Malekith said, squeezing tighter. "Now."

Hermione, having forgotten about the strange thing called the Aether, jerked her head back to Malekith.

 _Great Frost Mother, hear my prayer._

She grit her teeth, her lips pursed and eyes blazing.

 _Help me protect my loved ones, as the she-frost sabre to her cubs or the beast to its pups._

Fire and feathers spread more thickly around her body.

 _Give me the strength to protect all my cherished ones._

Her lips curled into a snarl as she remembered what it felt like to be betrayed by her supposed best friends.

 _Guide my steps on the frozen land that I may not be cast into the sea._

A spear formed in her hand, dark and shimmering, red and black with a flaming spearhead glowing with a different, magical fire.

 _For I am a lowly hunter, empty without Your grace._

The Aether shattered around her neck, the necklace breaking into particles of red and black as the dark matter swirled around her like a cyclone.

" _ **Yes! Yes! Come to me,"**_ Malekith beckoned, screaming with his naked desire and need.

"You wish for the Aether?" Hermione said, her eyes a disturbing combination of black, red, and gold. "You shall have it."

 _If I am to die, let me save my loved ones._

Hermione launched herself into the air, visions of Halvor wounded, the people she loved, the mate she could only remember, the spider valiantly trying to help her and Arvid's expression when he woke from his healing slumber to find her alive—

He has a family that relies on him to come home, she thought.

As she came down, spear poised—

 _ **SHINKKKKKK!**_

A blue hand shoved a dagger deep into Malekith's back and wrenched it viciously upward toward the heart. Loki's crimson eyes blazed with absolute rage as he looked up towards her— their eyes met, bright gold to crimson.

 _ **SHHHCRRRRUK!**_

The spear slammed into Malekith's chest from the other side to hard it went through his ribs and into the ice so hard that the frozen ground cracked.

 _ **WHOOOOOOOOOM!**_

Magical plasma and Aether blasted outward, unmaking and remaking in the same breath as a blaze of bright light flared only to be followed by a most ominous black.

"We accept," two voices said as a glowing nova of red and black raced out from ground zero as the world's loneliest island was suddenly covered in darkness.

* * *

Hermione was a little breathless as Loki's mouth left hers, his crimson eyes glowing a little more crimson. Their bodies, once melded together so many times she had lost count, finally parted for a final or at least longer time. As she looked around, the terrain seemed oddly smaller than before, and—

Halvor slurped her face, causing her to splutter. No, Halvor seemed the same size. Wait, what was _that_ next to them?

Hermione eyed the bloodstain on the ground where her spear had impaled Malekith. Loki's dagger lay in the frozen puddle as well, but Malekith's body was gone. The frozen landscape, however, was alive with—

Very large, and very delicious-looking crabs— shells as white as—

Hermione stared again.

Every crab, (and since _when_ did enormous sub-zero crabs exist on Earth?), was a pale white like Malekith's skin, with icy blue eyes, and black, intricate markings on the exoskeleton. They looked strangely like, well… a crabby Malekith.

Hermione looked up. "Um…"

Loki growled, latching onto her neck, causing a hundred jolts of absolute ecstasy to shoot straight down her spine. "I could really go for a nice crab curry about now," he murmured into her skin.

"Oh-kaaa-aay!" Hermione babbled helplessly as his teeth found her sensitive skin. Her eyebrows furrowed together as she realised both she and Loki were covered liberally in a glistening white paste that had been carefully traced over their shared markings.

Arvid, who was sitting nearby, chewing on a leg could have been a giant crab, chuckled. "Since I'm technically an elder back home now, I took the liberty of witnessing your union and blessing the consummation of your marriage— some twenty-odd years late." He grinned from ear-to-ear. "Congratulations!"

Then he looked around at the scurrying crabs. "We've _**got**_ to take some of these home with us. They are totally delicious!"

Arvid looked smug. "Also your spider friend is off recovering with Severus, who gave him a—" He frowned slightly, trying to remember. He made a gesture of drinking and then made a shape of a flask with his hands.

"Pepperup Potion?"

"Ah, yes. That. Human language is pretty strange," he said with a nod. "We had a few days of pantomiming and pointing, grunting, and trying to figure each other out while you two were busy having a most _excellent_ reunion. Your other small friend came in through a glowing portal, cast a spell on your other friend, and smacked him over the head with this large tome, and we were able speak the same language. He left though— said something about interdimensional crisis in XR-53— oh I forget the rest."

Loki had the decency to blush slightly purple.

"But, look at the bright side, hearth-sister!" Arvid said. "You're both finally the right size, and we have crabs! They seem to multiply to the same number they started out with. I don't claim to understand how that works, but the meat tastes sweet and rich as is, no seasoning necessary at all."

Hermione, having realised she was quite naked, still wrapped snugly in Loki's arms, and her hearth brother and hearth-beast regarding them with amusement flushed deeply. Her eyes widened.

"Wait, what do you _**mean**_ we're finally the right size?!"

Arvid bellowed laughter. "If either of you could stand up straight, we could have a demonstration," he hinted with a distinct smirk.

He stood extending a hand to her, smiling as her hand clasped in his and her eyes went wide as saucers. He pulled her up, and for the first time she looked up at him and the distance didn't seem to great. She wrapped her arms around him as if to squeeze the very life out of him, giving a wondrous, happy sob.

"Brother!" she cried, her hands tracing his markings with her fingers. The soft glow of their markings grew more radiant as their bond solidified with their contact.

Arvid smiled warmly and pressed his forehead to hers. "At last, my sister, She-Who-Watches has truly blessed your union and your devotion to Her."

Arvid smiled at Loki. "And _you_ , brother-in-law. Whatever took you so long?"

Loki gave a shrug. "I was slightly delayed," he said dryly, "by an dull-witted ox having a blonde moment."

"Aren't _most_ Asgardians blond of some shade or another?" Arvid inquired, grinning mischievously.

"There is a definite lesson in that," Loki commented, his ruby eyes shifting sideways.

"You weren't," Arvid teased.

Loki's expression was smug. "I'm sure I am hardly the perfect example of Asgardian comeliness."

Hermione shifted her eyes over. "I find you _quite_ comely."

Loki whipped around with a growl and engulfed her in a possessive embrace.

A familiar huff and sigh came from nearby. "Must you torture me with the sounds of your snogging and growling as well as the rejuvenation of your displaced polar arachnids?"

Hermione squeaked, peeking over Loki's arm like a child hiding behind a bed. Despite her substantially increased stature, some reactions were ingrained far too deeply.

A familiar fuzzy spider cheered from atop Severus' hair. " _All better now!"_

Hermione looked on both parties fondly. "Severus?"

"Hnn?"

"What would you think about moving to someplace no one on Earth would ever look for you?"

Severus grunted, then cocked a raven brow. "Aren't we _already_ someplace few would ever think to visit?"

Hermione's grin seeped into a wicked ear to ear smile. "We could do much better, yes husband?"

Hermione's eyes and Loki's flashed black and red for a moment, like sand flowing across their eye sockets and then disappearing.

Loki's eyes shifted between blue and green as he straightened his shoulders, lifting his head just so. "As there are other things that I ache to take care of now that I have found you again."

Hermione lifted a brow. "Oh? What kinds of things?"

Loki's eyes darkened. "Things _long_ overdue."

* * *

Harry came home to an empty house, throwing the keyring down on the table as he sloughed off his coat and threw it onto the old and dilapidated armchair. Once, all of his things had been shiny and new, and he had reveled in it, having never had anything of his own back when he lived with the Dursleys.

After the Wizarding War, his fame had been legendary, but all of it had been a most stupendous _lie_ based on Ron's fierce desire to see his mate elevated into stardom while he got to ride his mate's coattails and reap all the benefits. And Ron hadn't been alone it it, even though he'd certainly been a main factor. Ginny, too, wanted fame and fortune. She'd always been hovering over him, wanting to be the witch all the other witches envied, the lucky wife of the Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry poured himself a drink of cheap Muggle whisky, not even willing to spend a few galleons on a bottle of Ogden's. He slapped a couple pieces of cheese on some bread and sat down in front of the hearth to eat. It was the only place that remained warm all year round, and the winters in Britain seemed to be worse than even Scotland's fiercest ever since—

Harry drank down the scotch and wrinkled up his face, slamming the empty glass back down on the table. It was his own damn fault things were as lousy as they were. While he made a lot on his tell-all book, he'd donated every last bit of the profits to underfed charities, Muggle and magical alike. He still had money, even after he'd paid back every endorsement he'd ever gotten, but he found he couldn't enjoy the fortunes. The remaining Black fortune reminded him painfully of his late godfather, and the Potter fortune reminded him of his late parents, whom he felt he didn't know any better than his ex-best mate. He wasn't sure who he knew anymore when all the people around him either hated him for ruining their heroic image of him or hated him purely for the sake of hating him. Rita Skeeter had added her own special flair to _that_ with gleeful abandon.

The Weasleys hated him, pretty much, just for the bad press his book brought to their family, and he found he couldn't really blame them for that. They'd gone from nobody blood traitors to sometime heroes, and Harry had thrown them back down again.

Harry pointing out that it hadn't been _**HIM**_ who had taken explicit nude pictures of his own sister and sold it to the Prophet for profit hadn't exactly helped smooth things over between them at _all_. The truth was he hadn't done enough when it mattered, and he'd let his best friend rot in Azkaban because he'd not wanted to get his other best friend in trouble. He figured no one would _ever_ have believed Hermione capable of being a Dark witch…

How very wrong he'd been.

To make matters worse, all of Wizarding Britain seemed to want to blame _some_ one for the rash of horrible weather that had descended upon the region, namely a vicious winter cold spell that made Scotland's previous record lows seem like a balmy tropical paradise. And since no one after the war wanted to confess to any more wrongdoing, lest they end up labeled a Death Eater or some other such rot, well, only a few had stood up for Hermione.

And they— had been scorned, shunned, and blacklisted from so many places. None of them had a kind word to say to him since Hermione's incarceration. And who could blame them, really? His last attempt at an apology had been a novel— hoping that perhaps, just maybe, the right people would read his confession and realise he had finally admitted the truth.

"Nice place," a voice said. "Very homey."

Harry looked up to see a man with long, wavy raven hair staring at him from the opposite chair, yet, the last time he looked, he hadn't _had_ another chair.

The man was sitting in a loveseat, his arm wrapped securely around a very beautiful woman. Both were as close to human as sculptures of the gods were to the actual divine. Their auras were distinctly preternatural. Powerful. Their eyes glowed as if filled with the northern lights, shifting and changing like desert sands before his very eyes.

"Who the bloody _**hell**_ are you?!" Harry cried, lunging for his wand on the other table.

The male tutted. "Now is that any way to treat a guest?"

"I don't even know you!" Harry yelled, having grabbed his wand and pointed at the man—

Only no one was there.

"Nonsense, you've known me for as long as tricks have been played—" the voice purred into his ear.

Harry swirled around.

There was nothing. The room was empty.

"Why don't you sit down, Harry," Hermione's voice said, so clear that it couldn't possibly be anyone else.

" _ **Hermione?!"**_ Harry whirled again to find himself sitting in the chair he thought he'd gotten up from to see Hermione dressed in what seemed like silk and fur, adorned only with what seemed like simple, if large, pearls. Her summer almost-brown skin had become almost like gold as azure rings and markings covered her bare flesh— and much of her skin was exposed, leaving very little to the imagination. In her lap was Crookshanks, who flashed his fangs in a huge yawn that swallowed his entire face as his teeth seemed, strangely, too large for his mouth.

Harry stared, unsure what to say or do.

"I saw your book," she said. "I even read it."

"I _tried_ to," the other voice remarked as the raven-haired man sat down beside her. He was wearing a strange kind of body armor that fused metal and leather in a way that Harry had never before seen. "Alas, all I got out of it was blah, blah, blah, betrayal."

Hermione put a hand on the man's, her slender fingers curling around his, and the dark-haired man silenced himself, eyes piercing, yet he did not move any further.

"For some reason, my lady wife believes you are of some sort of value," the man said, tilting his head to regard him sideways.

Harry just stared at the woman that seemed like Hermione yet was so much more than what he'd ever imagined.

"Harry, my eyes are up _here_ ," Hermione said sharply, her eyes narrowing at her blatantly staring ex-best friend.

"I would greatly prefer, Potter, if you kept your ogling to yourself and not upon my lady wife." The dark-haired man's face creased with a different sort of severity. He looked at Harry as though he were insignificant, less than scum beneath is boots.

Harry shook himself straight, stammering. "Wh— uh?" He shook his head and seemed to recover himself. His fog seemed to clear and his eyes widened. "Hermione! You got my letters!"

"All four hundred and eighty-six of them," Hermione said. "Tell me truthfully, Harry. At what point were you actually sorry? When you missed my trial to marry Ginny, or when Ron sold pictures of his sister with the Quidditch team to the paper?"

Harry winced. Guilt, Harry knew well, and he had a lot of shame to spare for his treatment of one friend over another. He'd been guilty of it since he'd met Ron and young Hermione with her buck teeth and frizzy hair had barged into their train compartment asking if they'd seen Trevor and then proceeded to fix his glasses and embarrass Ron with "real magic."

Always, it had been Ron before Hermione. Ron had been his first friend. Ron had given him his first sense of family. The Weasleys had practically adopted him, and Hermione— all she had given him was letter after letter he'd never actually written back to, even though he'd cherished every one.

"I was blind and an idiot!" Harry blurted. "By the time I realised they'd actually put you in Azkaban, I kept thinking that it would never stick. I kept thinking you'd be out the moment they looked into it deeper. They could never make another mistake like they did with Sirius." Harry's face twisted. "Suddenly it had been years. Then you'd escaped, and I thought, well at least she's free and smart. If anyone could escape and—"

"Live the life of an escaped criminal on the run, hunted by every idiot with a wand, hit wizard, and desperately poor person who just wanted a better life?" Hermione's face had darkened, making the strange blue runes that shimmered across her face shine over her golden skin.

The strange man put a hand around hers, his thumb tracing the runes on the back of her hand. Hermione's expression immediately softened, and she took in a deep, cleansing breath.

"Your betrayal weighs me down and takes energy to maintain the disgust and the anger I have nurtured for more time than is healthy," she said. "Ironically, it was Severus who cautioned me that harbouring such things in my heart for such a long time would do to me, and it was he who recommended I take care of the problem before it consumed me."

"Take," Harry started. "Take care of me?" The aura of power around Hermione had grown since the days he'd known her, and he was fully aware of what she'd been capable so many years previous.

Back when she was free and held no grudges—

"I worked hard after my book to get you freed from Azkaban, Hermione. To get the truth—" Harry protested. "When they released you and gave you that pardon and the funds to make up for the last— I thought you'd—"

Hermione tilted her head. "Wait, you got me released? With a pardon and funds?" She laughed, the sound of her laughter seeming like a desperate, half-sane cackle. Her expression transformed into something smug, her lips pursed into a thin line as her eyes flickered black and red for a moment so fast he doubted if he saw it at all. "Tell me, Harry. Where are the Weasleys now?"

"Last I heard, they moved to Egypt. They wanted to get out of Britain."

"I'm sure the press is at least better there," Hermione said, that strange smile on her face.

"Actually, I think—" Harry shifted in his seat. "Skeeter works the press there after having been outed for fanning the reason you were incarcerated, sullying your name. The money you received—part of it came from draining her retirement as compensation. Not sure why she's in Egypt though— seems like an odd coincidence. She latched onto them, of course. I hear they are going to try and move again, but they don't really tell me. I only get a few tidbits here and there from the twins, who seem to hate me less than the rest of their family."

"The one thing Rita Skeeter loves even more than tearing down other public figures is destroying the lives of those she finds most deserving of her _special_ brand of venomous interest." Hermione curled her lip, looking very much like the dour Potions Master of old, yet she ran her fingers down her chin like she had a beard— a gesture Harry was unaccustomed to seeing on Hermione.

Then again, he thought to himself, he didn't really know her very well back in the day.

 _Liar,_ his mind sneered at him. _She was just the same as you knew her back then until your betrayal transformed her into something much more unforgiving._

 _She would have done anything to save you. She did throw herself in front of a killing curse. For you._

Hermione stood suddenly, and Harry swallowed hard. "What did you want from me, Hermione?"

"Want?" Hermione's shoulders quaked with amusement. "Nothing. But I will give you a chance to prove to yourself just how much you'd rather be somewhere— anywhere— else." She gave him a tight smile. "Succeed, and you may find that living away from this life you have created for yourself as far less than you thought. Fail, and, well—"

Hermione looked around. "Live here with your woes and solitary existence. A magical world that has lost all its magic."

"Why would you give me another chance, Hermione?" Harry asked quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Do not mistake me for a _fool_ , Harry Potter," Hermione warned him coolly. "I will not be so quick to open up my arms to you again, and the place in which you must prove yourself may prove to be far more than you can handle. But then again, maybe not. Perhaps you have always wished to pit yourself against narrow odds from the very beginning; not to be a hero, but someone who just wants to be like any other bloke, one whose value is measured in meaningful deeds rather than heavily-embroidered stories."

Harry, rather unnerved by the dark-haired man beside Hermione, swallowed hard and nodded in assent. "What would you have me do?"

Hermione lifted her chin. "Pack up all of your things like you're never coming back and tie up your affairs." She tossed him something, and Harry caught it with his wand hand, wincing as it seemed strangely cold, like holding a chunk of dry ice. "That is your Portkey… of sorts. Simply stand in the center of the things you wish to take with you and recite the passkey."

Harry reached up to place the token on the mantle, but hesitated, even though his hand far colder than he cared to admit. "What is the— passkey?"

Hermione said nothing for a long while, her hand sought the dark-haired man's. He pressed his face into the curve of her neck, whispering something against her skin.

"Harry Bloody Potter," she said, flicking her hand out with a gesture so the token was set in a golden medallion with a sturdy chain that wrapped itself around his neck. "Do not lose it. It is a one way trip."

She turned as if to leave. "Oh, and Harry?"

"Yes?"

"Make sure to put on the warmest clothes you own before you trigger it."

Harry's face crinkled with lines as his brows furrowed. "Okay, but—"

The room was empty.

"Bloody _hell_ ," Harry whispered. "What just happened?"

* * *

Ron let himself in to Harry's garden and patted around the rocks near the door to find the place where Harry always kept a spare house key. He plucked it out with a snide smile, brushing the dirt off it. The ruddy bloke had always been a creature of habit.

Harry hadn't been at Grimmauld, not that he expected him to be. They'd all moved their shite out once they could afford new digs, and Ron had been the first to find a newer, better place at an upscale magical community just outside London. Harry had wanted a smaller, cozier place, even with Ginny and possible children, which made no sense to Ron at all. Maybe if he'd paid more attention to what Ginny wanted, she wouldn't have spread her legs for an entire Quidditch team. Then again, that stunt _had_ won him a hefty addition to his Gringotts vault, so it had worked out just fine.

Sadly, his unexpected incarceration as "Hermione Granger" had gotten him kicked out of his posh private manse due to missed payment, and now everyone saw him as the stupid bint, so he couldn't even get laid by a witch unless they were lesbians, and Ron had _no_ interest in a girl who only liked other girls. It was bloody unnatural, that was.

When he'd gotten word that Harry had been working to try and release him, Ron had thought his best mate knew the truth and just wanted to get him out of Azkaban. He'd tried to meet up with his mother, but he found out his entire family had moved to Egypt to escape the bad press and public notoriety caused by none other than his best mate's bestseller tell-all book. So, now the Weasleys were back at the bottom again, or at least no longer partying every day like he wanted and getting free box seats to Quidditch games. Worse, now that he looked like Hermione Granger— which he still didn't see, even when he looked in the mirror— people wanted opinions on things he didn't care much about.

House-elves. What Hermione Granger _really_ thought about the war. Pish.

THe last interview he had tried to paint himself as the hero he really was and set things straight, but the reporter had accused him of being an imposter trying to feed off of Hermione's fame and infamy. He'd ended up getting kicked out of the nice restaurant after having to wash dishes a few hours for free, just because the bloody reporter had bailed on him without paying for the meal.

He couldn't access his vault at Gringotts because he _still_ looked like a witch to everyone else— the wrong witch. He couldn't even access Granger's accounts because he didn't have her wand— he'd seen to that personally by destroying her wand the moment she'd been incarcerated.

Served the little bint right for making a fool of him so many times.

But Harry— oh, now he deserved to get a proper telling off. How dare he make his family look bad. How dare he betray _**HIM**_?!

Ron tripped over a signpost in the dark and landed hard on his face. He got up, swore under his breath, and then brushed himself off, and squinted at it in the evening's dimness.

Sold?

The _**hell?!**_

There was no _**way**_ Harry would ever leave this place. The sign surely must've blown in from someone else's yard. He stomped around to the side door that Harry had said he always forgot about, and put the key in. The door didn't creak at all as it opened up, and that pleased Ron immensely. He'd just pop into the kitchen, help himself to some food and lie in wait for his quarry.

Only the pantry was bare except for a half a loaf of French bread, a hunk of cheese, a few bottles of brown sauce, a jar each of mustard and Jamaican banana chutney, a few tins of sardines in chilli sauce, and a large jar of blackcurrant jam.

 _Wait_ , he thought.

He rustled around in the back of one cabinet and punched out the side board. Excellent. Harry's stash of Muggle whisky was still there. Prying the cork out with his teeth, he spit it out and took a deep swig right from the bottle, smiling as the fiery liquid burned its way down his throat. The bloke would have to return home _some_ time. He just had to bide his time.

A creak of the front door alerted him, and he quickly took a few more swigs of whisky to prepare himself for the coming confrontation. Then he plastered his body up against one dark wall, listening intently.

Harry clinked around, making rustling sounds. "Well, might as well take the condiments," he said, glass and containers clanking as they went into a hamper. "I'm not going anywhere without the brown sauce. I'm sure Hermione will understand, right? Oh, let's just keep right on talking to yourself, Harry. That makes you even more special in the head."

There were more rustling and clanking, lugging, and heaving noises.

"Ooookay then," Harry said. "Winter wardrobe and long johns, check. Scarf. Hat. Balaclava. A few pairs of gloves. Heavy-duty parka. Wool sock collection worthy of Dobby. Dragonhide snow boots. Snowshoes and poles. Extra warm pyjamas, hrm—"

More rustling and dragging.

"De-fogging charmed umbrella? Who the hell uses an umbrella in freezing weather? Idiot."

More rustling.

"Sleeping bag. Ground cover. You got this, Harry. We camped in a ruddy te— well, might need one of those too."

 _Thunk_.

"Torch? Are you a wizard or are you not, Harry? Damn, what's _wrong_ with you? Wand? Check. Spare wand? Okay, good. Firestarters in case my teeth are chattering? Check. First aid kit? Probably a good idea."

 _Tink, thump._

"Blankets, spare blankets, favourite duvet, wait— pillow. Can't forget that. Dopp kit? Check. Wait."

 _Rustle. Rustle. Rustle._

"Okay, good. Towels? Yeah, those too. Tent? Check. Spare tent? Weather-proof rations? Cooking supplies? Waterproof bags? Tarp? Journal? Notebooks? Ink? Quills— mess kit, hrm, aren't those in the tents? Oh well, doesn't hurt to have extras."

 _Thunk_.

More rustling.

"Potions, bandages, ointment. Broom supply kit. Oh, the spare cot— okay, I think that's it. Wait, _**soap!**_ "

Fast footsteps lead away and then back.

"Okay, now I think we're done, mate. Ah, could I forget bowls, plates and utensils to eat with?"

Ron peeked around the door and saw Harry standing next to a very large trunk with many, many shrunken things in it. The distinctive shape of a top-of-the-line racing broom disappeared as he shut the lid. Harry wiped his brow, but he was wearing a full winter parka, scarf, balaclava, and mittens. There were only two small holes where his eyes showed, and even that disappeared as he drew down tinted snow shades over his eyes.

The _**hell?**_

"All right, then. Here goes… Harry Bloody Potter."

The air suddenly seemed to vibrate as a glowing circle formed around him and the trunk, adjusting its shape to encircle what was needed.

"Bloody _**hell**_ , you're not leaving here until I give you a piece of my mind, Harry Bloody Potter!" Ron lunged towards Harry, his body crossing the glowing line—

 _ **SHHHHHFFFFFFFFFFFOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!**_

A blinding light filled the house, and when it cleared, Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley had disappeared.

* * *

 **A/N:** Serves you right, jerk-face! (ahem) I mean… dang, who saw _that_ coming? Term starts again on Monday, so writing updates will be few and far between. I might squeeze in one last hurrah tomorrow, but please don't count on it. Wish me luck, and see you more regularly with the very welcome return of summer.


	4. Conclusion

**A/N:** I blame…Thor. It's probably all his fault, anyway.

 **Beta Love:** The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard

 **And now the conclusion of: Blink of the Gods.**

* * *

 **Blink of the Gods**

 **Chapter 4**

 _I guess one of the ways that karma works is that it finds out what you are most afraid of and then makes that happen eventually._

 _Cheech Marin_

Harry landed flat on his arse as Ronald landed on his face and Harry's trunk landed on top of him with a loud thump. His brows furrowed, taking a moment to take in the distinctive red-orange hair.

" _ **Honk!"**_ Ronald yelped, his arms flapping about as his body shivered violently— at least that is what Harry _thought_ was happening, as he wasn't at all dressed for the frigid climate. All he could see around him was ice and snow as far as his vision allowed.

All at once, there was a circle of giant blue-skinned men moving to surround them, glowing spears gleaming in the gloom. The glow of their crimson eyes reminded him of the laser sights on Muggle sniper rifles from various movies and shows on the telly. Behind them, a ring of huge, vicious-looking beasts— tusks, horns, fur, and a great many teeth— approached from behind.

"Whoa now," Harry said. "Look, I just need to throw some clothes on my— um, this guy."

As Harry struggled to get his trunk off Ron, the giants spoke, but Harry couldn't understand the language. Their expressions were frankly suspicious, and their voices were the very opposite of friendly.

The circle parted as a voice called out.

There was something very familiar about that voice.

Harry tried to listen closer, even muffled by his hat, head coverings, and hood, but it was not successful.

The haze solidified as a stocky sabre-toothed tiger-looking beast trotted in— about as large as a shire horse of Earth— and none other than Severus Snape dismounted and gave the beast what appeared to be a large rib to chew on.

"Mr Potter. I see you brought along an unexpected guest." Severus' lips curled up in a familiar sneer. "Improperly dressed for the climate, I see. How very— unfortunate."

He turned and said something to the giants around them, and they nodded, shuffling to the side as one of the giants threw some sort of pelt over Ron and bundled him up like a cord of firewood.

"Let go of me- _ **HONK!"**_ Ron said, teeth chattering as he squirmed.

"I'm quite sure you don't really want that, Mr Weasley," Severus said, eyes narrowing. "Some of us _are_ suitably attired for the occasion— or at least properly protected from the elements."

"F- _ **HONK-**_ ing Snape!" Ron bellowed. "Get me _**out**_ of this!"

Harry's eyes widened.

"You should probably follow me, Mr Potter, unless you prefer to camp out here in the middle of nowhere," Snape said, gesturing for Harry's trunk. It obediently lifted up off the ground and set itself on the "smaller" feline-beast's broad back, where Snape lashed it securely with some sort of thin cord. He held out a hand. "Unless you feel like walking in a snowstorm, you will have to get in front of me."

Harry swallowed hard, wondering why Snape didn't seem to wearing even half the clothing he did until he got closer and realised the older wizard's skin was not pale blue because of the extreme cold.

He was _literally_ blue.

His original fathomless black eyes had transformed into a startling deep crimson, and the robes he was wearing weren't at all heavy, rather more wispy in texture and they billowed impressively in the wind as if they would blow away at any moment.

Snape pulled something out of his robes and it extended into a long spear— much like the others he saw— and he thumped it against the frozen ground. The giants thumped theirs as well as they leapt onto the backs of their respective beasts, and they were off into the blinding snowfall that was far _too_ blinding for Harry.

When the movement stopped, and Harry wasn't even sure it had stopped so much as the animal beneath him had simply stopped suddenly, and Harry went tumbling off into a "nothingness" of white. He landed on the ground with a resounding thump, groaning in pain as something round and hard pushed into his gut and tried to embed itself under his ribcage and displace his heart. Tears streamed down his face as he tried to suck it up and not burst into torrential tears, but between the cold, Ron having hijacked his portal, and being met by giants— it was a really stressful day.

He curled up into a ball, still groaning.

And then something wriggled up against him.

 _What the?_

Harry felt something squirming against him, and he frantically tried to get up, thinking he'd fallen on someone in the snow.

 _ **Screeaawwwk!**_

Two golden eyes met his as a seemingly glowing blue-white dragonet peered curiously up at him. Loud yells came as the giants moved around him, yanking him back with his dragonet as they scooped up the other—

Oh, they were _eggs!_

He watched numbly as the giants bundled them up carefully, setting them in saddlebags on their beasts.

"You truly have the luck of the gods, Potter," Snape said, yanking him back up on his feline. "Hold tight to the wyrm. And don't let him singe off your face. We have a long trip more to go."

Harry could only nod as he clung to the feline's long fur with his mittens, pinning the wyrmling between him and the feline's neck. Oddly, the heat from the feline and the wyrmling made him feel so much warmer. He could almost hear the wyrmling's heartbeat and start to make out its thoughts— hunger. Gut-twisting hunger.

"Take this and feed him," Snape said, shoving a bundle into his lap. "It's seal jerky. Don't let him overstuff himself. Chew it in your mouth and then let him take the end from your mouth. Don't make faces at me, Potter. I can tell you are. If you don't provide food, he will find food on his own, and trust me you don't want that."

Harry flinched, grabbed into the bag awkwardly with his mitten, and pulled out a large piece of what looked like beef jerky. Thinking of England and trying not to imagine what seal tasted like, he did as he was bidden. Oddly the taste was not what he had thought it would be, and he gnawed on it, softening it, and then did as Snape had told him, offering it to the wyrmling while dangling it from his mouth.

The wyrmling snapped at it, chomping and chewing on it with enthusiasm, radiating pure pleasure, and Harry couldn't help but think it was like a baby bird taking food from—

 _Oh._

It was like a baby bird taking food from the _parent_.

Harry resisted the mental facepalm and started on another piece of jerky. By the time he'd softened it, the wyrmling wanted more, and into his mouth went another piece of jerky.

The journey didn't seem as long now, and when they stopped (this time a bit less abruptly) he didn't kiss the ground with his face instead of his feet.

Severus grunted, pointing to a glowing snow shelter, where the flickering fires within seeped from inside through the small joints where snow brick met snow brick. A lantern hung outside the front, or what he thought was the front where two huge— were those _jawbones?_ —bones rose up like twin arches.

As he shuffled in carrying the wyrmling against his chest, he felt very small. The door was obviously made for someone much taller. As he walked up a ramp to a living area where a warm hearth quickly took the chill away, he saw two giant felines laying on their sides watching him intently. The grey feline riding beast they had ridden on bounded in from outside and purr-rumbled and rubbed up against what must be its parents.

"Praise to the Great Frost Mother, we did not fall into the sea," Severus' distinctive baritone voice said from above him.

 _Above_ him?

Harry backpedaled as a much larger Severus Snape strode in, banishing his robes to a hook as he stretched and cracked his neck. He sniffed the air and—

 _Smiled?_

Snape was greeted almost instantly by two children who glomped onto his legs and chattered at him excitedly. "Please, speak in English for our guest."

"Father!" said one.

"Uncle!" said the other.

"Is this Harry?" the one asked.

"Harry Potter?" the other asked, elongating the syllables experimentally.

"Mmhmm," he replied. "Rona, help your mother with the food, please. Eirik, please fetch your parents a jug of fresh water for the drinks."

"Yessir!" they both chimed, scurrying off.

The wyrmling in his arms thumped to the ground and instantly grew very fascinated with Harry's dragonhide snow boots, wrapping itself around his legs until Harry wobbled.

"Severus," a feminine voice greeted, and a tall woman walked over and embraced him. "Your journey was safe?" Her English was heavily accented but understandable.

"Yes, and we found a nest of frost wyrm eggs, which Sigvard is taking to Arvid to be put in the rookery so the other wyrms can look over them," he explained. "One, however, Mr Potter introduced himself to with his body as he crashed on top of it."

The woman giggled. "That silly cub just doesn't know how to stop. He'll get better."

"At least it wasn't _me_ this time," Severus muttered.

"You know you love him, my mate," she answered, giving him a kiss. She eyed Harry with an evaluating look. "You are welcome as a guest in our home, but it is not just one family that lives here. We have set aside a place for you until you are skilled enough in our ways in both language and culture, after which you will be taught how to build your own shelter."

"You really should name your wyrm," Severus said with a sniff. "Before it chooses one for itself that you will most likely hate. Ellisif, my love, what smells so divine?"

"Curried crab," she answered.

Severus grinned. "It will _never_ get old."

Severus turned to face Harry. "Mr Potter, perhaps instead of trying to stare a hole into the back of my head, you would like to put your things up?" He pointed one long, blue finger to a cleared away living area.

The wyrmling wobbled its head back and forth, making a crooning sound.

"You trying to sing, mate?" Harry asked the creature, amused.

The wyrmling bobbed and crooned again.

"You're a right bard, eh?" Harry mumbled back to the creature. "Maybe that's a good name for you, hrm? Bard?"

The wyrmling jetted flame, albeit a tiny flame, and snuggled closer into Harry's chest.

Harry dragged his trunk over to the place set aside for him, pausing to run his hand over the incredibly soft fur that covered the sleeping area.

"Sir, I don't mean to be so thick, but how did you, I mean what, erm—"

Snape's eyebrow raised into his hair.

"You're not exactly human anymore, sir," Harry blurted.

"I should hope not. Far be it from me to make myself the like of Hagrid," Snape said. Seeing Harry's confusion, he sighed. "There are a few things that can happen when you settle here, Mr Potter. One, you could die the prey of something very large or by doing something _very_ stupid. Two, you could offend the wrong king and get yourself struck by storms until you fall into the ocean. Three, you can learn the language and culture and eek out a decent life."

"There _is_ option four," Ellisif said with a smile.

Harry looked at her in query.

She smiled wickedly. "Dedicate yourself to She-Who-Watches and become a hunter, then impress yourself a female like _my_ mate did," she purred and gave Severus a kiss on the nose.

Snape growled lowly in response.

Harry's face twisted and wrinkled. "But— how can you already have children?"

Ellisif puffed proudly. "He was most excellent in pleasing me."

Severus' lips twitched as he attempted in vain to look somewhat less conspicuous.

"Time is fickle to those not rooted in Jötunheimr, Mr Potter," Ellisif said. "Those of Miðgarðr most of all. Of all the Realms, Miðgarðr is the center of all the Realms. Ásgarðr flies above them all, but your Realm sits in the middle, never quite in one direction or another. It makes those of your Realm more susceptible to the barrier She-Who-Watches puts on her domain. She guides and protects us all. Some find themselves wandering the same patch of ground for days upon days. Some find themselves parted from their Realm and time by many passings of the moon. It is hard to say which will hit and when, and even harder to say if one of your Realm were to survive the first few steps when the cold seeps so easily to the bone."

"Give him time to remember which way is up and discover which way is down," a familiar voice chuckled.

Harry looked up. It was Hermione's voice.

A large— no gargantuan— feline pushed its way into the entrance, yawning extra toothily as it rumbled by. It ignored Harry to rub up against Severus and Ellisif, dwarfing them both. It suddenly became clear why the shelter was so large— for it wasn't just the giants that seemed to need the space.

As the feline entered, the warmth in the shelter seemed to raise almost instantly to what Harry considered too warm with all of his layers, and he finally, bravely started to peel out of his coat, scarf, and under-layers. He raised his head as a woman came in carrying what looked like a bundle of fur with horns and spikes.

"Lady Gudrun," Ellisif greeted. She and the other woman approached and pressed their heads together. "I trust that _ whelped her litter well?"

"All except this one," the woman answered, laughing as the beast licked under her chin. "I'm watching him for now. For some reason, he was born with horns and spikes grown. Tore his mum up a little and she understandably doesn't want much to do with him after that. Poor guy."

"Ahhh, boys, that is what they do," Ellisif said with a grin. "Let's have look at you." She took the pup in her arms and pressed her head to his. The pup wriggled and licked and thumped his tail.

"Should we make room for a new beast now or give it a few hours for you to get over your denial, Hermione?" Severus said as he pressed his head to the woman's with a smug smile about his lips.

The woman smiled, and suddenly Harry realised that tall, golden skinned and blue-runed woman was none other than his childhood best friend.

"Severus," she said warmly. "You know you love hearth-beasts."

"I have enough with Fuzzbucket here," Severus said.

"That name," Hermione laughed. "It's— so you."

"No, Dunderhead would been his name if I'd— _**NNGH!**_ " Severus was suddenly pinned by a enthusiastic pounce from the "smaller" feline.

Both women giggled into their hands, trying to be polite but failing utterly.

"My wife, are you causing mischief without me?" a voice pouted as a dark-haired man stepped in.

Hermione turned, her face radiating her smile. "And what if I was, husband?"

"I would ask that you save some for me, as it is I that is the supposed God of Mischief, and I am terrible at the entire empathy and rebirth thing."

Hermione stuck her tongue out at him and was immediately engulfed by his arms as a passionate kiss ensued.

" _ **Hermione?"**_ Harry blurted.

The woman turned, an amused expression on her face. "Yes, Harry?"

Harry's eyes bugged out of his head. "What _**happened**_ to you?!"

"I found myself," Hermione answered, visibly amused. "Literally."

"And me," the man said, giving her the eye.

"Hrm, i suppose."

He pushed out his lower lip in a pout. "My lady, you wound me."

Hermione smiled, putting her hand to his cheek. "Harry, this is Prince Loki of Ásgarðr, God of Mischief, and my sometimes husband when he is not giving birth to foals."

Loki's head jerked around as he flushed. "That was strictly a one-time occasion, my love."

Hermione tilted her head. "Mmhmm."

"You doubt me?"

"I doubt any permanency or truth in the gods of Ásgarðr, my Prince."

Loki growled softly. "Just Loki." He pressed his head to hers.

"Just Loki," Hermione repeated with mischief.

Loki looked like he was going to say something to her when there was a soft thud as Harry fell back against the sleeping furs and let out a gasp of air.

Hermione walked over, shrinking herself down to her human size as she ran her hand over him. "He's fine, he's just— having a moment."

Loki and Severus arched brows simultaneously.

Hermione lured the wyrmling over, crooning to it, and it nuzzled her chin before curling up against Harry and going back to sleep. She pulled a cover over them both to help Harry feel "warm" enough to sleep. "It's not like he had proper preparation for the adjustment.

"He didn't exactly deserve one," Loki said, brows furrowing.

"He will have a chance to prove himself, as we all did," Hermione

said. "Besides, Bard seems to think he's worth something."

"He's a _baby_."

"They can grow up together," Hermione said, eyes smiling for her.

A knock and a head popped in the door. "Pardon us, my friends, but we seem to have a strange situation with the other male we brought back," a younger Jötunn said.

Hermione tilted her head. "The _other_ male?"

"Well, we _think_ its male. It's so hard to tell when their parts are so tiny," the Jötunn answered.

"Uffe, did you just insult their parts?"

The Jötunn flushed purple. "It is _**true!**_ "

"I will come and see what you brought back, Uffe," Hermione laughed. "Please tell your mother many thanks for the extra sewing awls."

Uffe laughed. "My lady, Gudrun, she is so grateful for your Halvor's return and his addiction to hunting snow weasels. Their ribs make the best sewing awls."

Hermione laughed. "True, but your mother makes them far better than I."

Uffe smiled. "I think I can safely say, my mother would gladly make your sewing awls for what you and your mate do to bring stability to our people once more."

Hermione clapped her hands on his shoulder and pressed her forehead to his. "No thanks are necessary. Please let the other hunters know we will come and join them very soon."

Uffe smiled. "I will. The bundle is making a truly atrocious amount of noise."

Hermione sighed. "If it is who I _think_ it is, noise is what he makes best."

Uffe scratched his head. "Do Midgardians always honk?"

Hermione blinked. "Pardon?"

* * *

" _ **Honk! HONK!**_ _**HOOOOONK!"**_

A fat ginger-coloured goose was flapping wildly around the living space, almost setting itself on fire, throwing itself into a stewpot, and getting tangled in a rather large spider web with a few extremely confused-looking frost-spiders.

The staring spiders seemed to make the goose freak out even more, as it kept getting even more tangled and frantic. It shot out from the silken web, destroying it, and it took off out of the shelter, honking hysterically.

Loki looked at Hermione; Hermione just shrugged.

"Do not look at me, husband. I do not use Transfiguration as punishment," she said.

Loki made a face. "I _do_."

Hermione looked skyward. "So, are you to blame for this?"

"No, but I have to admit a certain admiration for such a flamboyantly coloured goose," he said.

"Same colour as your supposed hair, blood-brother of Odin," Hermione teased.

Loki groaned. "Please. I look horrible with flaming hair."

Hermione purred. "I much prefer raven hair."

Loki, peeked, murred at her. He jolted. "I am _not_ the blood-brother to my father!"

Hermione laughed as she ducked out of the shelter. "Let's find the silly goose before he sets the entire camp afire and distresses the spiders."

" _ **Bloody hell!"**_ Harry's voice yelled from the neighbouring shelter. There was mad honking before Harry cried out again. " _ **BLOODY HELL!"**_ he cried.

Hermione and Loki rushed toward the shelter, perhaps imagining some sort of goose attack on Harry mixed with the wyrmling eating the goose— or perhaps Halvor or Fuzzbucket.

As they burst back into their living shelter, they ended up tripping comically over a huge pile of bronze coloured eggs as if they were treading on marbles. Harry, up to his torso in eggs, groaned.

"Bloody hell," Harry moaned.

Suddenly the amount of eggs in the shelter rapidly multiplied as the ginger goose on top of the pile produced an unnatural quantity of enormous bronze eggs.

Severus, who was sitting on a significant pile of eggs as he flipped through a tome, lowered the book to peer at his wife. "Omelets for breakfast, my dear?"

Ellisif who was buried to the waist in freshly-laid eggs, seemed baffled. "It seems we have more than enough to share."

The ginger goose on top of the pile let out a faint honk, spread-eagle on the mountain of eggs, wings spread and beak parted as its sides heaved in exhaustion.

Hermione, having fallen with Loki onto Halvor, who had his head sticking out of a pile of eggs as if swimming through pudding, gave a rumble of confusion. The kitten, however, had a mouth full of eggs and was trying to bury them— under still _more_ eggs— somewhat unsuccessfully.

Stunned, Hermione shook her head and groaned. "Bloody _hell._ "

" _ **HONK!"**_

The ginger goose honked frantically as even more eggs were added to the pile.

"Bl—"

Hermione clapped her hands over Loki's mouth, shaking her head frantically.

He stared at her, giving her expressive eyebrows.

Bard, who had managed to escape being buried alive by eating his way out of the predicament, belched flame on the nearby egg. It crackled and turned golden, splitting open in a perfect deviled egg. The wyrmling gobbled the two halves down hungrily and burped, belly finally full.

As Hermione released her grip on Loki's mouth, he grinned from ear to ear. "We _must_ invite mother to breakfast," he said.

The ginger goose, which seemed to have grown larger with each laying of eggs, honked wearily from the top of the piles. Now significantly larger, a jagged. swirling emblem of sorts seemed to be emblazoned on the middle of the goose's head, made more obvious by the goose's increased size.

"She-Who-Watches' Mark," Ellisif whispered reverently.

Harry struggled to free himself from being buried in goose eggs. "What the blo—"

" _ **NO!"**_ Hermione and Loki cried together, tackling Harry into the pile of eggs and clamping their hands over his mouth.

* * *

Days later, the encampment built an improved enclosure for the village's first curse-on-demand-egg-laying frost goose, whom the children named Agni. Hermione had very carefully sound-warded the area to ensure that no more egg avalanches occurred, especially when the Jötunn children because altogether too enthusiastic in "testing" if the goose would actually lay on demand. While frost geese were nothing new to the Jötunn, they had always relied on luck in finding one for food, and eggs— finding a nest was next to impossible— were a luxury they had never experienced before.

Ron, or rather Agni, started to brood over her nest of eggs, provided she could fit over them, and goslings didn't take too long to make themselves known. How such a thing was even possible without a gander remained a mystery to all, but the Mark of the Great Frost Mother was enough for most of the Jötunn to just accept it as "one of those things." One thing for certain, the Jötunn were _not_ complaining about extra sources of food. Neither were the wyrmlings after Bard shared his trick to the others.

"What happened to him?" Harry asked as he tried to help the other "children" slice the meat to dry and smoke around the hearthfire. Despite his human age, his knowledge level was less than a child's to the Jötunn, and he was expected to do what the children were capable of.

"She-Who-Watches judged him," Eirik said, sticking a cord through the lip of one of the fish and tying it to the drying rack.

"You can tell because of the symbol on the head," Rona said, tracing it over her forehead with one finger.

Harry, still a bit gobsmacked, scratched his head.

"I'm Eirik, Son of Loki," the boy said, pulling a cord with his teeth.

"I'm Rona, Daughter of Ellisif," the girl said laying the meat out on the rack in careful movements. "You seem to have problems with names."

Harry flushed. "More I forget whose parents you are." He looked sheepish.

Both children looked at him oddly, perhaps wondering how anyone could forget something as basic as whose parents were whose, but they shrugged and kept working.

"Why do you say that— 'Eirik, Son of Loki' and nothing about your mother?" Harry asked.

Eirik tilted his head. "Everyone know my mother because she's the mate of my father."

Harry stared blankly.

"They don't forget my father because my name calls to my mother," Rona said. "They are a mated pair."

Harry continued to scratch his head.

"You know, when mother and father make each other very happy as we might get a new sister or brother," Eirik said, completely blase. "I would like a sister, so Rona has someone else to pester."

"Hey!" Rona said, giving Eirik a playful shove as she smacked him over the head with a fish.

Eirik grinned at her, and it was clear they had no less love for each other despite their banter.

"What's your full name?" Rona asked.

Harry fidgeted. "Harry James Potter."

"Son of?" Eirik asked.

Harry frowned. "James Potter."

Rona eyed Eirik. "Harry James Potter, son of James Potter. That's a really long name."

Harry tried to say something then stopped. He thought a moment, tried again, then stopped. "I— That's not my name, I mean, that's not my real name. I mean—"

The children stared at him.

Harry fidgeted. "Please, just call me Harry."

Bard nipped his chin, crooning hungrily.

"Are you ever _not_ hungry?" Harry asked.

Bard made a sad sound, his stomach growling loudly. Harry grabbed a bag of seal jerky and chewed on it, leaning over to feed the hungry beast before he started rummaging for himself.

"So," Harry said, his mouth half-full of jerky. "Does every family have an animal with them?"

"Hearth-beasts are not just animals," Rona said.

"They are family," Eirik said. "If you don't have a hearth-beast, people question your heart because, erm—" He seemed to be struggling for words. He and Rona talked back and forth in another language. "If your heart cannot accept the hearth-beast, then how can it know love or faith?"

Harry frowned. "For a couple of kids, you're awfully deep."

The children shrugged. "Wait until we're a thousand!" They giggled at each other and reveled in Harry's boggling.

"A— _thousand_?" He muttered.

"Or however long it takes to become a hunter," Eirik said with a grin.

"A grown hunter," Rona corrected.

"And what makes a grown hunter?" Harry asked.

"Being grown," the children answered.

Harry made a face as the wyrmling snapped the last of the jerky from Harry's mouth, making happy crooning noises.

"Children," Snape said as he stuck his head in the door. "Please go help Hauk and Livunn pack Halvor. Lady Gudrun must travel the villages and bring food and medicine to the far camps."

"Yes, Father!"

"Yes, Uncle!"

The two children scurried off quickly.

Severus sighed as he entered the shelter, sending his robes to hang off a hook.

Harry stared, still a little shocked to see as much bare skin as he did on his old Potions professor.

Severus' lips tugged into a smile as he walked by, summoning tea with his hand as sat at the table. "I trust they aren't breaking your mind any more than usual, Mr Potter?"

Harry swallowed hard. "No, sir."

Harry sat down at the table, setting the wyrmling down on the sleeping area where it burrowed under the covers and became a large lump.

A snoring lump, at that.

Severus poured the tea. "You seem to be uncomfortable with the native fashion, Mr Potter."

"I—" Harry made a face. "I suppose it's more seeing the people I thought I knew, erm, wearing less than I expect," Harry confessed.

"Well, it is summer, Potter," Severus said deadpan.

"THIS is summer?!" Harry wheezed.

Snape snorted, eyebrows raised with mirth. "Peace, I am pulling your leg, as it were," he said. "You arrived in the dead of what Earth would called winter."

"Does it actually ever get warm here?" Harry asked, hopeful.

Severus chuckled. "I fear if you are expecting the spring of the tundra, you are in for a most serious disappointment. This is Jötunheimr, and the seasons here on the frozen wastes are always at least partially frozen."

"Sir— how is it that you are so, er, acclimatised?"

Snape sniffed. "There are those that acclimatise and those that are assimilated, Mr Potter. You can live here without being one of the people, but I chose to become one of the people. I learned the language, the ways of the hunt, and I became a hunter. That attracted the attention of my lovely mate, who made her intentions known by throwing down a sealskin in front of the elders and dragging me down on top of it with her. She said I was missing her more subtle hints and so she decided to go for the obvious."

Snape's lips curved upward, obviously cherishing the memory. "You see, She-Who-Watches tests all those who come into her domain, one way or another, but those who _truly_ embrace the life and her blessings— they become a part of her chosen people. To some it is here amongst the frost giants, and to others the mountains that lie far beyond the ice floes. All of Jötunheimr is her domain."

"I thought Loki was the king of this place?"

"No, that is Útgarða-Loki, a Jötunn sorcerer who believes since he can control the weather, it makes him king. He rules over the city Jötunn and those who live in the more temperate regions where an ice and snow storm is actually a threat, tricking those foolish enough to enter his city and not pay him respect."

Harry scratched his head, baffled. "There are _two_ Lokis?"

Snape eyed Harry. "Are you the only Harry?"

Harry's expression shifted as he facepalmed. "Oh."

Severus' expression softened slightly. "It _is_ a lot to take in. I'd imagine more so than the first day you came to Hogwarts, only instead of magic, you find yourself having to learn skills that will keep you from dying the moment you set foot outside."

Harry looked down. "Sir, why did Hermione bring me here?"

"So keen to leave, are you?" Snape asked.

Harry shook his head. " _ **No!**_ I would _**never**_ —" He looked to Bard who was snoozing under the covers. "I would never abandon him. I just— she could have just left me to suffer."

"If you think she is the type to not give second chances, then you have not been paying attention, Mr Potter," Severus said quietly, his voice sounding very much like the one used to teach first year dunderheads. "Do not mistake her wish to give you a chance to prove yourself as an easier path, however."

Harry shook his head. "I don't. I just— after what I did," he said, staring down at his teacup.

"This is not Purgatory, Mr Potter," Snape said. "You can have as good a life here as you are willing to work for. Nothing more, nothing less. But, there are no shortcuts to success. No quick paths to make it faster, shorter, or any less grueling. The only thing you will find that can help you here are the allies that you make and finding faith in the right places."

"That being said, tomorrow, I will help you go through your things just in case your… _friend_ left you any unexpected cargo that you are unaware of," Snape offered.

Harry nodded. "Thank you, sir."

"For now, I recommend you sleep. The cold tends to seep into your bones here until you get used to it, even with that portable heater you have hogging your blankets over there."

Harry eyed Bard and grinned. "Yes, sir. I think I will."

Snape watched Harry as he curled up next to Bard and pulled the covers over them both, his crimson eyes narrowing as he eyed Harry's trunk.

* * *

As the soft sounds of sleeping filled the shelter, an unknown hitchhiker crawled out from the myriad of items stuffed into Harry Potter's travel trunk. Having noshed her way through a package of Eccles cakes, she had _no_ idea how long she had been in the Boy-Who-Lied's trunk.

That stupid bint, Granger, had been a perfect ride into Potter's unremarkable lair, and it hadn't been too hard to sneak into his stuff to go wherever it was the boy was planning to escape to.

But where the hell _was_ this place?

Conversations had been confusing. She recognised some of them by the names and some by the voices— especially that Granger bint. She'd have recognised _her_ anywhere. She'd been following her since she got out of Azkaban, writing stories about how the little slag thought she was actually Ronald Weasley. She was seriously mental, that one. The things she said? The things she did? It was almost as if Granger believed she really _was_ that Weasley boy. Why would anyone want to be that youngest Weasley son after the way he'd shamed himself and his sister without her help? There was a certain irony in that...

But these people had a strange accent and an even stranger way of talking. They spoke of places in a completely different manner, as if it wasn't on Earth. They even spoke a different language entirely, and that was even more frustrating. Wherever this place was, it was out there.

Way out there.

As she crawled out of the trunk, she shivered. It was oddly chilly for her tastes. She saw the odd blue-white hearth fire and wondered if her beetle vision had gone pear-shaped. Her antennae wriggled and she looked around for any dangers. It was oddly quiet— the strange chatter that seemed to come from all around had all ceased, as if bedtime was universal. Where the hell did _that_ happen?

Merlin, they were all asleep. That little bint— with that frizzy hair she'd know anywhere—was sleeping with some man with his arm wrapped around her. They seemed oddly larger than life, which annoyed and disgusted her. Was he _blue_?

Rita rubbed her leg over her eyes and looked again. Damn the weird lighting in this place.

Wait, was _that_ the long missing dungeon bat himself sleeping here too? Who was that woman he was cuddling in his sleep?

She had presumed the bint was talking to Snape using a Floo—

But the evidence was clear. They were all here. Wherever here was.

Rita dropped onto the floor and immediately regretted it. The floor was ice-cold! She scurried over to a nearby rug and huddled into it to try and keep warm.

WHUMP!

 _What the hell?!_

Rita scurried in a panic as something came down on her from above. She wriggled and squirmed to get free and then dashed for the nearest dark place to hide in or under.

Mrrrrrrrooowl, came a deep rumble.

 _A cat? Oh, just wait till I'm out in the open, cat. I will hex you into next year._

The crevice she chose to hid in suddenly moved, and she looked up to see a large— more than large, impossible oh _**Merlin**_ , huge— sabre-toothed cat regarding her. The feline's dark grey tail was poofed up with excitement as it pounced.

 _ **OH HELL NO!**_

Rita channeled the best magic that she was able to use while in her Animagus form and gave the beast a strong, painful jolt of electrical shock.

The beast leapt backwards and bumped into—

Rita felt a surge of adrenaline as her body skittered without her permission. No, no, no, nononono _**NO!**_

That was _not_ a cat. That was a—

A—

 _ **FREAKISH MONSTER!**_

She'd thought the other one had been large, but no. Double no. Triple no. The beast that rose up from a curled position by the fire was—

Rita made a beeline for the door, desperate to escape and assume her human form so she could Apparate back home. Despite her frantic attempts to Apparate as a beetle that had all ended in failure, but only now did she really wish—

 _I really wish I had a form with a warm fur coat instead of this!_ Rita wished fervently.

The cold was making it really hard to run.

Where the hell _was_ she?

Her body spasmed painfully as she ran, causing her to trip and fall over herself. She squealed, wincing as the sound of her own surprise sounded strangely high and inhuman.

Thump, thump, thump.

She could feel the feline monsters chasing her.

Whump!

A paw slammed down near her, and the "smaller" feline mrowled in frustration.

 _ **WHUMP!**_

It tried again.

Again!

She seemed to run in place, and she desperately tried to go somewhere-anywhere!-fast. She'd never had such trouble moving before. It was like the ground was ice!

 _I really wish it was easier to run!_ Rita moaned, scrambling, twitching, and then squealing again as a paw almost hit her. She started to move forward at last, her feet having finally decided to work.

The larger, white beast cat appeared in her way.

Rita squealed in fear, slip-sliding and tearing off in another direction as the frost sabres went off in hot pursuit.

* * *

"Father?"

"Hn?"

"What is that?"

"I believe that is Jötunheimr's first beetle-boar," Severus replied, rubbing Fuzzbucket between the ears. The frost sabre cub was bat, bat, batting at the strange combination of boar and beetle through the gaps in the fence.

"It looks funny," Rona said.

"I'm fairly certain it is not a natural occurrence anywhere," her father replied.

"But, then why is it here?"

"If that is who I believe it is, it is because she could not keep her nose out of other people's business— specifically your aunt's."

"But if she has a question, why doesn't she just ask Lady Gudrun?"

Snape sniffed. "Oh, she asks questions just fine, my daughter, but she was never polite about it."

"That's not very nice," Rona said, crossing her arms.

The elders of the encampment muttered to each other, pointing at the marking on the aberration's forehead. A woman dressed in the thin gauze-like robes and sea-pearl jewelry spoke with them. She lit the end of a stick then blew it out, allowing the smoldering end to raise smoke.

The woman nodded after a while. "This is the will of She-Who-Watches," she said, gesturing both above and below. "Her judgement, however, is not complete, but what that is will be between the Great Frost Mother and her." She pointed to the beetle-boar.

As if to accentuate the priestess' words, one of the village's male boars came up to sniff the newcomer, and Rita squealed as her body changed a little bit more, becoming more boar and less beetle.

Snape's eyebrows rose as a wicked sort of smile tugged at his lips. "I sense many bacon butties in our future."

"Huh?" Rona asked.

Her father pulled her against him, pressing her face into his chest and covering her eyes as the newest female boar of Jötunheimr "became acquainted" with the virile male of the herd. "Time for lunch," he said, dragging his daughter with him, giving the priestess a respectful nod as he went.

"Bwhut dadddy," she murmured into his chest.

* * *

Time, much as Ellisif had tried to explain to Harry, passed, and he found that before he knew it, centuries had passed for him while on the Earth that he had known, only a blink of time had gone by. In that time, he had grown up, again, only this time he filled in the areas he'd missed the first time… or the second time, depending on how you looked at his magical upbringing.

And so Harry James Potter, son of James Potter became Harry Jameson or simply Harry.

Or Hunter.

Friend.

Brother.

Father.

As he stood in the bramble-filled graveyard, the heavy snow made everyone retreat into their warm homes, and Harry smiled a little.

"Father, is this grandma and grandpa?"

Harry placed his hand on his son's head, ruffling his black hair. "Yes, my son, it is."

A younger girl who had distinctive ridges across her skull instead of hair knelt by the grave, placing a polished stone with runes on it to the headstones. "I am Brenna, daughter of Dagny," she said, pressing a kiss on the stone. "I am honoured to meet you through my father."

The boy put an arm around his sister and placed a kiss to another stone before setting it on the grave. "I am Tait, son of Harry," he said proudly. "I am honoured to meet you through my father."

Harry wrapped his arm around his mate, pressing his face to her head ridges with a kiss. Dagny smiled at him as she leaned into his chest. They lowered a small ice-lantern, filled with a small, white-blue fire, to the stone. Harry passed his once-beloved wand over it, enchanting it to only be visible to those who were magic-sensitive before carefully tucking it away. He touched his fingers to his lips and touched the stones.

"Mum, Dad," he said. "I'm really okay. I may look a little strange to you now, but I've never _felt_ better in my life. I think— you'd be proud of me. I had a really rough start of it, but I finally found my way. It just took a little… reality check, courtesy of my best friend, my sister, Hermione."

He wrapped his arm around his mate. "This is Dagny, the love of my life, and my children, Brenna and Tait. I love them very much, and I think you'd have loved them too. I fear we won't be able to visit often, but please know that we do think of you often— and if you're up there somewhere, maybe you can understand why better than most."

The family knelt in the snow together, their relatively giant bodies looming over the small grave like spectres. When they stood together, Harry hugged them all before unravelling a small bundle of sealskin tied together with silk. Inside was a huge golden egg, a smoked boar hock, a small bundle of seal jerky, and a bottle of shimmering ice wine.

"Happy Anniversary," he said with a fond smile.

As they walked away from the grave, Hermione and Dr Strange stood side by side. As Hermione channeled the spell that cloaked their passing, Strange opened the portal to Jötunheimr with a nod. Harry and his family passed through into the frozen lands of Jötunheimr and their home.

After the family left, Hermione and Steven held hands as they, too, walked into the portal and then it closed itself behind them.

* * *

As Thor sat on the throne of Ásgarðr, he looked out over the great vastness of the sky that stretched out into space beyond the mighty walls of Ásgarðr. The very spanse of space seemed to taunt him and mock his lack of freedom, for he was chained to the throne as assuredly as his father before him. Only now did he truly understand the heavy weight of the crown and how every move he had to make affected all of his people rather than just himself.

He had once believed such things to be his birthright, and he had also embraced that such things were meant to happen. But now, he looked through the far seeing eye of the throne of Ásgarðr and saw so much more, but at the price of his freedom.

 _Jane—_

Jane had been but the barest flicker of a candle, and yet that light had taken root in his heart and burned ever brightly, even many years after her death. Even now, with Sif on the throne at his side and with children running amok much as he and his brother did so many years previous, his love for Jane had never waned. And it wasn't as if Sif didn't know, either, even though they did have a fondness for each other that was far more than just lip service.

Jane was simply his first true love, and perhaps Odin had only tried to spare him the heartbreak that came with her life snuffing out so quickly, but he had treasured the few decades he'd had with her. For Miðgarðr, he had been there for almost a century, first as young lovers, then for a while they thought her an older woman with a younger man, then at the end, they thought he was her son taking care of her ailing, weary body.

He hadn't minded, though. The fleeting time that he'd had with her had been a precious gift, and when he at last returned to Ásgarðr, nothing had really changed.

Well, nothing had changed but him. He had gained— perspective. Finding love, maturity, having a child. Though Jane had long since passed, their child, Oskar, had come back to Ásgarðr with him.

Sif, while not his birth mother, treated him as her own. He had chosen the apples of Idunn and the longer life of Ásgarðr as his heritage, but there were times when Thor knew his son dearly missed Jane, just as he did.

Strangely, Odin accepted Thor's son far more easily than Jane, and only now did Thor realise why. Oskar would life and grow up Asgardian and have the lifespan with which to do so. Perhaps, he thought, Odin had driven him to Miðgarðr to "elope" knowing that while "outcast" in Miðgarðr he would have a lifetime with her before returning. Perhaps, All-Father had known that Thor had needed experience that only Miðgarðr could have given him, much as it had given Odin so very long ago when he wandered the Realm as the Wanderer, Warrior Poet, God of the Norse.

Only after having lived a lifetime with Jane had he truly understood the gravity of the crime against his brother. Only after having Jane die, even after having lived a long, beautiful life together, did Thor understand fully what he had done to his younger brother and what he had done to Lady Gudrun so long ago.

What he had done against the Great Frost Mother as well— the greatest offence of all.

But now, he understood. As he watched his brother and his wife tending Jötunheimr as living gods under the Great Frost Mother, he realised his little brother had gained true freedom while he had gained the yoke of the throne. All of Loki's jealousy had disappeared the moment he had found himself enthralled by Lady Gudrun. His journey in godhood had come full circle, and he didn't need Ásgarðr to be beloved by his people, his mate, or his devout.

Even now, the God of Mischief still roamed the Realms, inspiring both shame and laughter as was his domain, but he always came home to Jötunheimr and to his beloved family and people. And judging how often the All-Father and Frigga visited them, there were no ill feelings between them.

Peace had finally come about between Ásgarðr and Jötunheimr, not by the force of war but the subtle touch of love. The love of Odin and Frigga for their adopted son, the love of Loki for his mate, the love of Lady Gudrun for her adopted people, the love of the Jötunn to the daughter of the Great Frost Mother, and most of all, the testing, harsh, but no less loving gaze of She-Who-Watches over her Realm.

And maybe, finally, Thor thought, the love between two brothers whose bond had finally been mended after so many mortal lifetimes.

He watched through the power of the throne— seeing his brother and mate sitting around the hearth fire with their family and the family that shared their shelter, the sorcerer from Miðgarðr, and the hearth beasts watching over them all. He couldn't help but feel a pang of envy at how peaceful and intimate it was, much like so many sunsets with Jane so many years previous.

Loki looked up, staring him in the eye. "Do stop being such a voyeur, brother, and bring Sif and Oskar over for dinner. We're having sweet chili Malekith crabs and roasted boar. Just because the throne is there does not mean you must sit your arse upon it at all hours of the day."

Thor flushed, having been caught (again) looking in on his brother's life.

"And bring Mjölnir, Uncle!" the children said, staring up at him pleadingly. "We can smash the crab shells even better!"

Thor snorted, eyeing poor, abused Mjölnir. The poor hammer had smelled of the most divine chili crab for—

A long, _long_ time.

Thor stood, banishing the vision with the firm decision that experience was much better than staring at life from afar.

"Oskar, Sif—" he said.

Oskar ran out, carrying a "small" cub over his shoulder, made all the more comical that the cub was larger than him. "Are we going to Jötunheimr, father?"

"Yes," Thor said, shaking his head at his son. "Must you carry that beast with you everywhere?"

"It's only fair," Oskar said. "He carries _me_ in Jötunheimr."

Sif ribbed Thor with her elbow. "Who could possibly defeat such logic? Our other son is buried deep in a game of patolli with All-Father and Frigga. We probably have at least a week before we see him again."

Thor picked up Mjölnir and shrugged, smiling. "Let's go. I look forward to drinking Harry Jameson under the table again."

Sif shook her head. "You just want to have him tell those outrageous stories about Miðgarðr."

"No," Thor corrected. "I want him to yodel those outrageous stories about Miðgarðr."

"You two are worse than those Warriors Three."

Thor grinned. "Better."

"Let's go, Bodo!" Oskar told the cub, and they ran together towards the Bifröst, a blur of enthusiasm.

"Mrrrowl!" the cub answered, bounding beside him.

Thor put his arm around Sif and gently kissed her temple. "Thank you."

Sif tilted her head, looking at him strangely. "For what?"

"Putting up with me."

Sif chuckled. "That's okay. I've been doing that since birth."

Thor roared laughter and swept Sif off her feet, tromping down the path to the Bifröst with his lady wife and queen in his arms.

"Thor!" she screeched. "You put me down this instant!"

Thor's face gleamed with mischief of his own as he began to run towards the Bifröst at full tilt, holding out Mjölnir as they lifted up off the ground and flew faster than the eye could see.

* * *

As the embers of the hearthfire burned, Hermione lit a small candle by the hearth, leaving a small bundle next to it as she put her hands together and lowered her head. Loki's arm went around her, and she looked up into his crimson eyes, smiling.

"Ready for bed?" he asked.

"I do not know," she said, tilted her chin up. "Will you be in it?"

Loki's eyes flickered with mischief. "Did you not like sleeping with Halvor?"

"Not when Halvor looked like _you_ , husband," she said, eyebrows arching.

Loki pouted, sticking out his lower lip. "Do I not entertain you?"

"Oh, but you are always entertaining," she said somberly, placing a light kiss on the end of his nose. "But if you try to get me to kiss Halvor again, I swear I will turn you into a frost weasel and sic Halvor on you."

Loki grinned, pulling her to him, he looked around the shelter, smiling as saw his children curled up next to their Uncle Thor and Aunt Sif as Bodo emitted furnace-like heat between them. Stephen Strange was fast asleep, his back against one of Halvor's newest cubs, a book plastered on his face where it had dropped as he had fallen asleep. The frost spiders moved a silken duvet filled with the softest beast-wool and frost goose down to cover him up. Severus, as usual, was busily brewing the last batches of ice fruit into mulled frost wine after one Harry Jameson and Thor Odinson had a drinking contest using the concentrated wine without diluting it.

Oddly, Severus never complained, because the stories he got to tell that embarrassed both Harry and Thor were epic, indeed.

Hermione looked upon the scene fondly, a radiant smile on her face. "A wonderful end to a perfect evening," she said as she snuggled into him.

"I could think of one thing better," Loki purred as he latched onto her neck and pulled her down on the bed, waving his hand to enchant their little pocket of privacy— if not for them, at least for his brother, who had somehow become strangely uncomfortable around public intimacy.

The irony in that was _thick_.

Halvor purred, curling around the two lovers protectively as they brought an end to the day together.

The frost spiders drew a silken sheet over them as others snuffed out the small lanterns as the light dimmed before crawling into their favourite nooks and crannies to sleep.

One solitary spider with a wine glass stuck over his head thumped into the side of a sleeping bench, squeaking pitifully in distress. Severus' hand scooped up the unfortunately arachnid and popped the glass off his head and drew the spider to him as he settled down next to his mate to sleep. The spider purred happily, snuggling against his neck for the night.

As all the lights dimmed for the night, the sky became alive with multiple colours that danced across the sky. The great frost whales sang as She-Who-Watches looked down upon her silent Realm and was quite pleased with what she had made.

* * *

 _Fin._

* * *

 **A/N:** And that's a wrap. I hope you enjoyed the story.

Thanks to my most awesome betas who provide so much sanity for me during my times of stress, and to The Dragon and the Rose, who taunts me with tasty foods that make me want to reach through the screen and shove biscuits into my mouth straight from the oven!


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